By Chuck Thonen
'Submit your site to 400,000 search engines' goes the
line from hundreds of search engine submission web
sites around the Internet. This may be the answer to
achieving your promotion dreams? But Beware.
The most likely effect is that by using these
submission services you will generate 1000's of Spam
e-mails selling you everything from Cyber Sex to
'Money Making Secrets'.
You will have thrown your money and time away because
without making your site search engine friendly at the
onset, no amount of submitting will raise it's position
in the results from the bottomless pit of page 140 to the
heights of the top 10 first page results.
In this article, we look at the basics of what search
engines are looking for and at the type of companies
operating in this sometime fly by night field.
Search engines examine pages submitted, along with pages
their software (known as spiders) find across the web.
They identify web page URL's then use links found on the
web page to visit other pages you have as well. These
'spiders' then extract information from the HTML code
used to create the web page. This allows them to calculate
how relevant the page is when a surfer makes a search for
a particular phrase or key word.
They work by identifying different elements in the web
page code such as Meta Tags, Page Titles, Text Headers
and the now even check ALT Tags of each image. Then use
a mathematical calculation to determine what the page is
about. They then rank their results to provide users with
what the calculation determines is the most relevant web
page for the phrase or key words being looked for.
Achieving just a few top positions for your site on relevant
searches can help make the difference between King of the
cyber hill and average Joe, with the site no one will
see.
Search engines provide access to your web site for people
around the world. Visitors are targeted because they have
specifically chosen to look for the products or services
you are selling. They are probably the hottest sales leads
a business is likely to encounter. If your web site is not
appearing on a top search then who is? You guessed it,
your competition!
There are hundreds if not thousands of search engines
and web site directories on the Internet. 90+ percent
of users stick with the major names, Google, Yahoo,
AltaVista, Yahoo, AOL, just to name a handful. Targeting
the top search engines has to be the main priority of any
search engine promotion. Other selected engines and
directories are valuable if they are regionally or
industry specific to your business.
However, there is little value in a listing in the
hundreds of small engines, which are unlikely to
generate many visitors. These smaller search engines
also tend to use the databases created by the major ones
for their results. So a good position on Google will also
mean a good position on many other engines that use the
same database. Even though the value is not great the smaller
engine can play a roll in producing link relevance and
that can help a bit in positioning. Heck, every little bit helps!
Submitting a site alone is not enough. There are tens of
thousands of sites all wanting to be at the top of the
search engine results. Without making a web site search engine
friendly little benefit is likely to be achieved just by
repeatedly submitting your web site.
The art of consistent top positioning is shrouded in
mystery. Many online businesses are taking advantage of
this to separate desperate site owners from their hard
earned money. Others act in an ethical manner and have
the best interests of their clients at heart. But how do
we separate the two? Many of the companies offering to
optimize your web site do so using widely available
software packages. These can be useful tools if you have
the time to do it yourself.
Web Position Gold is the best known of these optimization
packages this software has been hugely popular with web
site owners. However as more and more businesses use this
method to create specially targeted doorway pages, then a
leveling factor begins to creep in. Each page is like the
next with little to differentiate between them.
Understand doorway pages, mostly a text page with just key
words may put visitors off about visiting your web site
altogether, make sure you have a link at the top to your
main site. A warning is needed, do not just use the age
old meta tag which just forwards the visitor from your
doorway pages to your main page as most search engine
spider may find this a Spam tactic and black list you
from the database for up to a year!
Other optimization companies have actually spent time
analyzing the search engines for themselves, conducting
experiments and tracking results to reverse engineer the
calculations used by the different search engines.
They are then able to use their knowledge to optimize your
web site to achieve a spread of high positions for your site.
Optimizing a site properly may involve rewriting the site code
to make certain words appear more prominent to the search
engines but without making changes, which affect what,
is seen by the visitor. This of course takes time and
therefore their fees will reflect that.
They will not offer guaranteed positions because they know
that search engines change their criteria and placements
will ebb and flow with them. They will not be cheap because
the client is paying for an expert to spend considerable
time working on their site to achieve what they are paid
for, more visitors and more sales. We are talking a $1,000 easy.
These are the promotion companies who know the black art of
making a site search engine friendly and will offer in the
long term the best value for money.
The other option, of course, is to work out how to do
it your self. There are many web sites offering advice and
free information about how to improve the search engine
positioning of your site.
By far the best are: www.searchenginesforums.com Forums where
all the professionals congregate to discuss developments and changes.
Also www.searchenginewatch.com provides a wide range of
general information about search engines.
The other do it yourself tool is www.submit-wizard.net a rival
of the well know Web Position Gold. Submit Wizard has a bit
more going for it as it has what is known as HRT
(Hand Replication Technology). HRT actually waits a while
before the auto submit tool fills in the form fields, there
for making the search engine server think it is a real person
filling in the add URL form. This helps as it doers not cram
all of the info down the server so fast it sites it as a Spam tactic.
A few other advantages are price, the easy interface, and
no down loads as Submit Wizard Is a web based program. In
a nut shell search engine promotion Is a hard game to play
and as when you where a kid playing King Of The Hill
Your reign was short but sweet. Programs that keep up the
promotion work for you are like your friends we all had,
making sure the big guy does not sneak up behind you and
push you off.
For more information see www.submit-wizard.net and start
the never ending Quest to become King Of The Website Hill
.................................................
By Chuck Thonen
The Internet's first Lemming to FREE
himself from the Guru's cold grip!
http://www.madmailer.com
http://www.submit-wizard.net
http://www.ad-page-wizard.com
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