Chapter 1 Getting Listed

Objectives Understand how search engines work Use various strategies of getting listed in search engines Register with search engines one by one Register your site with search engines by mass submission

Search Engines – 3 Parts 3 Components: A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") that goes to every page or representative pages on every Web site that wants to be searchable and reads it, using hypertext links on each page to discover and read the site's other pages.spider A program that creates a huge index (sometimes called a "catalog") from the pages that have been read. A program that receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns results to you. Cited from Examples – Snap, AltaVista, Lycos, Google, Go Automatic

Directories A subject guide Organized by major topics and subtopics Example: Manual Portal Generally synonymous with gateway for a WWW site that is or proposes to be a major starting site for users when they get connected to the Web or that users tend to visit as an anchor site.

Submission Policies Apply or found through a spider Provide information Title URL Description Keywords Contact name and address

Spiders Seek the same type of information Find the information through the Meta Tags Meta tags found in the header of the HTML document.

Order of Importance Title Body keywords Meta Tags

Laws of Search Engines Word Wide Web may appear to be a virtual machine, but it is indexed textually FAQ’s Relevancy based on keyword placement in the title, meta tags, and body Can only add the pages submitted or found Submission guidelines Constantly upgraded algorithms

Getting Listed Title Descriptive, precise keywords Keywords In the body near the top How often appears on the page 250 words per page to be indexed H1 or H2 headings Meta Tags Do’s - Same as body keywords Limit to 150 characters Lowercase, Use plurals Vary the tags on sub-pages

Getting Listed (continued) ALT tags Use them, especially if you images contain your keywords Log Files Who’s visiting from where Frames Confuse the spider Get others to link to you Become the popular one

Registering with Sites Individually - one site at a time Mass Submission