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If you want people using the Internet to find your site,
one of the most important things to do is get listed in the
indexes of the major search engines. This can be a complex
process and one that takes a lot of time. Following is an
outline of what’s involved and how you can get the most for
your site:
What’s the best way to get listed?
Each search engine and directory has specific requirements
when accepting a "request to be listed", and those requirements
are all a little different between each index. These differences
make it essential that you (or a third party) submit your
site details regularly (monthly is best) by hand. In many
cases you need to identify the exact category for your submission
into each directory - the submission software available on
the web cannot effectively do this.
As long as your site is search engine ready (a whole new
article!) the best way is still to go to the home page of
each search engine you would like to be listed on and look
for the “Add URL” link. If you are looking for a good place
to start this process, look at the list of directories on
the Smartype site (http://www.smartype.com.au/addurl.html).
How do the search engines place a page in their database?
Following your request, the search engine will send a
‘spider’ to look at your page. This is a program that maps
all the links and retrieves content for the database to be
shown on the search results page when someone is looking for
you. Search engines have different ways of getting this type
of information from the code in your page:
- Google works on <TITLE> and the first paragraph
of so of the <BODY>,
- AltaVista looks at <KEYWORD>s and little
else and
- Lycos seems to work on the title and the <DESCRIPTION>s
that should be written for every page.
The secret lies in becoming a student of search engines -
looking at them and keeping up to date with changes to try
and 'optimise' your site to reach them all without alienating
any of the major ones. The time period between you submitting
your details and appearing in the search engine listings varies
between immediate and around 2 months for different directories.
Next month... Search
engine submission: Part 2.
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