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Search
engine submissions
Once your site is built, we'll
manually submit it to all the major search engines for indexing.
But why? What are search engines? How do they work and why are
they important? Here's a rough guide to those frequently asked
questions.......
What are search engines?
In simple terms, search engines are web-based "directories"
that attempt to list every website so that visitors can find what
they want on the web easily. Go to a major search engine (like
Google or Yahoo), type in a couple of keywords (if you were looking
to buy a tennis racket in Newcastle, you might type in "Sports
shops, Newcastle"), and, hey presto, in a few seconds the
search engine will list you every website that it deems relevant
to the word(s) you've searched for. It will show you all the
results,
usually in batches of 10, starting with what it thinks is the
most relevant, down to the least relevant.
How do they actually work?
Most search engines, like Google, use electronic "robots"
and "spiders" which "crawl" over web pages
looking for key information to analyse what the page is about
and to give the page some form of weighting, depending on the
perceived relevance to it's subject title. Each search engine
uses a different, highly complex algorythm to rate each page.
The spiders generally return periodically to check any changes.
Some search engines, like Yahoo, use people to assess each new
site submitted and decide it's relevance.
In addition to the basic directory
services, most search engines offer a number of advertising, or
"sponsorship" opportunities. This involves paying money
(either in terms of a flat fee or a pay-per-click arrangement,
for a more prominent positioning in the directory (like taking
out a display ad in Yellow Pages rather than just a line-listing).
Why are search engines
so important?
With the number of web users now approaching 1 billion,
more and more people are now trying to locate products and services
via the web rather than other traditional ways - like Yellow
Pages,
the local paper etc. For many businesses, the difference between
being in the Top 10 or not, could be millions of pounds of (lost)
business. In the UK alone, research has found that nearly 14,000,000
people are now "on-line savvy" and use the internet
for searches and transactions. So it's a fierce business.
At one end of the scale, some businesses have successfully centred
their complete marketing and promotion strategy on their website.
For others, search engines are less relevant as they are do not
have products/services with mainstream relevance, or are using
their site to impart information to small targeted groups of users.
Ultimately, search engines are another part of the process of
marketing your web presence. Because building a website in itself
achieves very little unless you tell people it's there. To an
extent that can be achieved through including your web details
in normal advertising, marketing and promotion, but, taken seriously,
search engines can dramatically boost traffic to your site - but
only if you manage to get a high ranking.
And that can take time and cost money. You'll need to decide
how much importance you attach to gaining a high search engine
ranking. Being realistic, most visitors find what they're looking
for in the first ten entries shown them. If you're ranked 450th
for a given search, no one's likely to get that far down the
list.
Gaining high ranking has become an intensely competitive business.
More about that in Search Engine
Optimisation
Who are the major players?
Click here
for a list of the major players and a short description
Will the search engines index me automatically?
If your site has incoming links from other sites, chances are
the search engines will make their way to you and index you
automatically in time. However, we will also manually submit
your site to the major search engines as part of the process.
It can take some time for inclusion (which is not always
guaranteed), but almost immediate indexing can be achieved
by paying the search engines a fee - worth considering if
immediate inclusion is critical.
Ultimately, remember that, whilst search engines are a a good
way of driving traffic to your site, they are not the only way.
Advertising, direct mail, company literature, word-of-mouth, P.R.....there
are a host of other ways to let people know about your site.
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