Making Money Online - Search Engines

Search Engines and How They Work

Unless Internet users know the exact “url”, they will need to use search engines to help them find what they are looking for. The majority of users will use the services of a search engine, without them it would prove nigh on impossible to find anything. This is pivotal in Making Money Online.

The World Wide Web is forever growing day by day; this is why you should consider which search engines are the most effective, this is a key area in you Making Money Online. The methods that they use do vary in techniques.

When a person submits a query into a crawler-based search engine, that search can result in tens of thousands (and sometimes into the millions) of related web pages. The first page of a search engine usually only show the top ten most related matches.

Of course, everybody with a web site would love to be in the top ten results. Most surfers expect to find what they are looking for on the first page and some just plain refuse to go beyond page one!

Types of Search Engines

Crawlers/Spiders

Search engines that are crawlers/spiders, visit web sites, collate and index pages for documentation ready for Internet users to search through. They read the web sites Meta tags page titles etc and follow any links that the site may connect to.

Any changes to your site will be found when the crawlers re-check your site, as they do periodically. How often this will be done will vary, depending on which search engine you use. You are likely to have several pages listed with crawler based search engines, which will produce good rankings with them.

As new URLs are found, they are added to the crawlers list of sites to be crawled. This function is continually repeated, finding new sites and retrieving information.

Human Directory Submissions

Human directory submissions are in effect search engines that are controlled by human editors; they compile all of the listings that are in the directories. The Open Directory is the only major human edited directory that is 100% free. It is maintained by a vast global community of volunteer editors. They say on their website – “There is not, nor will there ever be, a cost to submit a site to the directory, and/or use the directory’s data”. They state that the Open Directory data is made available for free to anyone who agrees to comply with their free use license.

It will be worth your while to spend some time familiarising yourself with all of the information provided, by visiting www.dmoz.org site content that is good and informative is probably more likely to be considered for inclusion than a poor site.

Obtaining listings with the major human controlled directories is a must, as these directories are seen by a lot of Internet users. Also, if you are listed with them, there is every chance that crawler based search engines will find your site and add it to their listings for free.

Human directories rely on human submitted information that has been indexed and catalogued, so only information that has been submitted will be put in to the index.

Submitting your site to the Open Directory

Due to the sheer volume of submissions, there is no guaranteed time scale to get an answer as to whether or not your site submission has been accepted.

It is a simple procedure to submit your web site; you just need to find the category that you wish to appear in. Click on the “add URL” link that is at the top of the category page, fill out the form and submit it. If accepted, your site should be listed within a few weeks.

Combined Search Engines

Combined search engines are when they use both crawler/spider and human edited listings. Some combined search engines favour crawler/spider based listings over human directory listings. When people search for specific information, it is the search engines index they are looking at and not the actual web. If a web page comes up as invalid, it is usually because the index has not been updated by the search engines yet.

Framed web sites are not suitable for many search engine crawlers/spiders. Some of the major search engines are unable to follow frame links. You will need to make sure there are alternative ways for them to enter and index your site through Meta tags for instance.

Major Search Engines

These search engines are considered to be in the top list, shown in alphabetical order.

AltaVista, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Excite, Fast Search, Google
Hotbot, Looksmart, Lycos, MSN Search, Northern Light, ODP / DMOZ, Overture, Teoma, Yahoo

Search Engine Submissions

Organic Listings

When your business web site has been optimised ready for indexing, you can begin to submit your site to the search engines. How easy this will be, depends on the options that you want to use, and what kind of results you require.

If you want to seriously increase your web traffic through search engines, then do not use “free web hosting”. Most search engines will eliminate content from free hosts.

A high percentage of Internet users use search engines to find websites, so it is in your best interest to make sure that you are making the most of them to stay high in search engine rankings.

The Importance of Good Keywords

An excellent way to decide on which affiliate product to sell, is to find out what people are searching for. The higher number of people looking for specific information or product shows that there is a market there for the taking.

This is where keywords come in, never underestimate the power of good keywords and phrases; these will be related to the words or phrases that people enter into search engines.

Aside from Google’s keyword search tool, you can download a free tool from keywordtumbler.com (you need to give your email to receive the download).

Another free keyword search resource can be found at goodkeywords.com, this is a freeware tool that can be downloaded without an email address. To find what people are searching for online, try Wordtracker.com.

Over-use of keywords

Repetition of keywords will not lead to a successful high ranking in search engines. This is considered as SPAMMING by many search engines, and could end up with your websites being penalised or outright banned.

Using key phrases that are popular like “sex” will definitely not increase your ranking, if it is not relevant to your product, forget it.

Do not repeat the same keywords in one sentence; they should be spread evenly throughout your content. When using keywords in Meta tags (a hidden tag in the heading of an HTML document which supplies extra information about the document) or your title you should apply the same principle, use only relevant keywords that relate to your content.

Using your web name title on every page is not a good idea; it is a pure waste of keywords. You should make better use of different keywords on other pages; this will enable search engines to pick these up in searches made by Internet users.

Don’t make the mistake in thinking that all search engines are alike; you must check each search engine’s rules and check routinely for changes. To keep your web site within top rankings, be vigilant.

Also, don’t forget to check that your web pages are complete; check that you are not missing any graphics or links.

Be aware of having too many graphics at the expense of your text. You may think that it will make your web site look more appealing, but Search engines can’t read those graphics. This could result in them missing text that could be more important.

Solution

Choosing the right keywords to describe your site will apply to your site content and title too. It is important to do some research on what keywords you should use, make a note of words you could use and put them in to search engines.

Think about it, if you were searching for a specific product, which words would you type in to the search? For example, let’s say you have a site for car enthusiasts but it is for a particular model. You would not put just “cars” would you? No, you would put in the particular model that you were interested in wouldn’t you? Searching for “cars” would be too general; it would probably bring up millions of pages.

There are several keyword research tools available such as Google, then study the results, also check out your competitors to see if their sites come up using the words you have chosen. If the words fail then just start again with different words, this will need some patience but it will be worth it.

Another free windows software tool worth looking at is ‘Good Keywords’ from Softnik Technologies. This will be ideal for finding suitable keywords for targeting your web pages. The web address is:
www.goodkeywords.com

Using smaller search engines that are field specific could benefit you. Even though their traffic will not approach any of the bigger search engines, these people are searching within these specialised fields for your product. Do not dismiss this idea; you are more likely to get results this way.

After submitting your web site, do not become complacent, do regular checks to ensure that your site is appearing within the top search categories of your field.

Do not make the mistake of re-submitting your site every week, as many of the search engines will consider this to be search spamming. This could result in your site listing being removed.

To Pay or Not To Pay For Submission Listing, Free Search engine submission can be a long process to get listed and is fine if you aren’t in any rush. If you want to get your website listed fast, then the only option is to use a paid program to speed up the listing process. Using this method will nearly always create more search engine related traffic for your site.

The downside of using a paid program to accelerate your website’s listing can be expensive. For example, to get reviewed and a response back from them within 7 days for inclusion in the Yahoo Directory will cost you US $299.00 per website (US $600.00 for websites containing adult content and/or services.) This is non-refundable and it does not guarantee that your site will be accepted for listing. There is a recurring annual fee of US $299.00 (US $600.00 for adult sites). Unless you are financially able, this option is probably untenable for you.

PPC (Pay per Click) is another way to get listed quickly by means of a right hand side advert; this is only good whilst you are paying per ad of course. Also, it will depend on how much the keywords cost that you use for your ad.

To keep your ad on the first page, your keywords could cost you a great deal more, unless there isn’t much competition. Planning a daily or monthly maximum budget for the Pay Per Click will prevent you from getting carried away and spending more than you can afford