Top search engines
There are thousands of search engines out there, but only a small
fraction of them are likely to send you more than a couple of visitors
each month. That is why instead of running around and desperately trying
to submit to as many search engines as possible, you should focus on the
ones that can have a strong impact on the overall traffic of your site.
In this article, I'm planning to list the four top search engines. They
are in a rough order of importance based on my estimate on how many
referrals a high ranking in each of them produces.
Because our intention is to only list search engines that offer free
submission, it was necessary to set some limitations:
- Directories have been excluded, because we've already covered the
three most popular ones (ODP,
Yahoo,
Looksmart)
elsewhere on this site.
- The same goes for PPC (pay per click) and other non-free search
engines. PPC advertising is a complicated subject, so I feel that it is
better to discuss it separately. Those interested can read "PPC search
engine advertising", my article about the topic.
- There are several major search engines that do not have their own
databases. For example, MSN draws all of its results from Looksmart and
Inktomi. While it is a large search engine, it is impossible to submit
to it directly, which is why MSN is not present in this list. The same
goes for other "non-independent" search engines, such as AOL.
Before mentioning any names, let me remind you that time moves fast on
the Internet. Just a few years ago, Infoseek was one of the top search
engines, but now it is gone. On the other hand, back then no one had heard
about Google, which is currently the undisputed champion. Things change
fast, so if you want to stay current, visit this page every six months or
so to check for updates.
The top dog - Google
After looking at my referral logs and reading discussion forums
frequented by search engine optimization experts, it is clear to me that
Google is the primary source of search engine traffic for most sites. This
should not surprise anyone, because in addition to the fact that Google
provides the secondary results at Yahoo, the engine itself has become the
favorite of great many people due to the high quality of its results.
To make things even better, it is in my opinion relatively easy to get
well-ranked in Google even under fairly competitive keywords. All these
things together constitute a good reason why you should examine Google's ranking
algorithm and ensure that your pages meet its requirements.
Submit to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html
.
Runner up - FAST
While it's still relatively small when compared with Google, FAST shows
promise of becoming a very serious contender. It provides search results
for many large portals and sites, for example to Lycos. FAST also runs its own search
service,
AllTheWeb, which provides
fairly accurate results and sports a non-cluttered interface.
Interestingly, FAST's algorithm seems to somewhat resemble that of
Google, which explains why some searches turn up similar answers at both
engines. However, there are differences, so a page that is in the top ten
at Google may not do so well with FAST.
Submit to FAST at http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
.
Third place - Inktomi
Inktomi does not run a search engine, but does provide search services
and software for other sites. Its largest clients are AOL and MSN, but
many smaller search engines and portals use Inktomi's results as well.
Most of Inktomi's customers use it as a secondary results provider.
This means that Ink's results are only shown when the primary provider,
such as Looksmart in the case of MSN, doesn't come up with anything
useful. Thus, Inktomi can provide only a limited amount of visibility to
the sites listed in it, especially under keywords that are very popular.
Those who are interested in getting traffic through Inktomi should
therefore target keyphrases that are less common, but are used in searches
every now and then.
Submit to Inktomi at
http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr?lp=ja_en&url=http://www.goo.ne.jp/help/door/url.html
.
Note: The above link takes you to Goo via Altavista's Babelfish,
which translates the submit page from Japanese to English. The "Submit"
button is on the left, the button on the right clears the forms.
My apologies for the clumsiness of this arrangement, but Goo is at
the moment probably the best way to submit to Inktomi's database for
free.
Fourth - Altavista
During its glory days in 1999 and early 2000, being able to obtain a
few top ten positions at Altavista was every webmaster's dream. However,
after that the engine has been constantly declining. According to recent
Jupiter Media Metrix statistics, Altavista has now lost two thirds of the
audience it had in the summer of 2000 when its popularity peaked.
At the moment, I would still advise that you submit all of your pages
to Altavista. But while it still is able to send a visitor or two your
way, you should only try optimizing your site for Altavista if you're sure
that the changes won't cause your position to drop in the other top search
engines.
Submit to AV at http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
.
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