Search Engines - the Major Players
AOL uses Google Search results, with some minor differences from
what we see at Google. The ranking of pages is slightly different;
the ODP title and description are omitted, and the Google cached
version of web pages is not available.
AOL Search can provide consistent, quality traffic, particularly
for sites in certain niche ecommerce areas. Until recently the three
sponsored listings at the top were Overture pay-per-click listings,
but now the PPC is Google AdWords. AOL's submission is to the Open
Directory Project (DMOZ).
At one time AltaVista provided an enormous amount of traffic to
web sites, and updated its database on a weekly basis. Unfortunately,
traffic from Alta Vista has drastically dwindled compared to how
it used to be, and adding and updating sites is being done slowly
and sporadically. There have been paid options for inclusion added,
but it is questionable whether those are worth doing..
It is still worth submitting to Alta Vista, which can only be done
by hand since a code needs to be entered that is only visible by
a human at the site and is valid for only 5 pages per entry of the
code. There is always a possibility of the popularity of AV returning,
but for now it's not where major effort should be directed.
Alta Vista
Information for Webmasters
Submit
to Alta Vista
AlltheWeb.com is the company showcase site for FAST, which supplies
many portals around the world with search results, including Lycos
in the United States. Now incorporating paid submit options, free
submission is still available.
FAST is a leader in modern day search technology. Their Advanced
Search includes some very exciting and innovative features.
Free
submission to FAST, as well as information about Lycos pay
for inclusion.
Google now virtually dominates the search market, providing the
vast majority of traffic for most U.S. based web sites. Google accepts
free submissions but prefers to find sites through links by spidering
the web frequently and aggressively. There are millions of searches
a day done at Google's own site, in addition to being the secondary
indexed search results at Yahoo and search provider for AOL, as
well as many major ISPs and portals around the world. The numbers
grow monthly; ranking well at Google is a *MUST* for any web site.
Google Webmaster
Information
About
Page Rank
Submit to Google
HotBot Accepted free submissions until last year for inclusion
in the Inktomi database; however it took many months to be included,
if at all. Inktomi paid submission is the option for those who don't
care to chance a long wait to be found by Inktomi crawling links,
although traffic from Hotbot is neglible.
Inktomi, while not a provider of search engine services directly
to the public, does so through partnerships with major ISPs and
portals, most notably MSN. Submission is made by subscription through
partner companies.
A popular major portal, Lycos offers search results using the FAST
database. Submission to FAST is available, though a paid submission
is available, which guarantees spidering and inclusion in the database
within 48 hours. There is some excellent information provided by
Lycos for webmasters.
Lycos
Search Services Frequently Asked Questions
MSN Search results are primarily from paid search engine and PPC
sources:
- Featured
listings - Pay-per-click
- Overture.com
listings - Pay-per-Click
- Looksmart
Directory - Was $299 for submission, now pay-per-click.
- Inktomi
Search Engine - submit free, but it's usually necessary to pay
for inclusion
Teoma is supplying Ask Jeeves
data. Teoma was not accepting submissions through their site until
recently, but has recently begun a paid submission program similar
to Inktomi, effective end of February, 2002.
A little on other
search engines, past and present.
Information on search
engine submission.
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