Search Engines and Listings

1. Search Engines and Listings • describe the difference between search engines and search indexes • describe the components of a search engine • design web pages that are friendly to search engines • request that a web site is added to a search engine • monitor a search engine listing • describe other web site promotion activities

2. Popular Search Engines& Search Indexes According to Nielsen/NetRatings (reported at http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html): Yahoo & Google! are the two most popular sites used for searching the Web during a recent month

3. Search Index (also called Search Directory) • Popular Search Indexes: • Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com • Open Directory http://www.dmoz.org • Each site is reviewed by an editor before being added to a search index • The search index maintains a hierarchical category of topics and places web site listings into these categories. • When visitors use a search index they have the option of immediately typing in a search term or "drilling" down into the hierarchy for relevant sites.

4. Search EngineComponents • Popular Search Engines: • Yahoo http://yahoo.com • Google http://www.google.com • MSN http://msn.com • Search engines use the following components: • Robot • Database (also used by search indexes) • Search form (also used by search indexes)

5. Search Engine Robot • A robot (sometimes called a spider or bot): • A program that automatically traverses the hypertext structure of the Web by retrieving a web page document and following any hyperlinks on the page. • Moves “like a robot spider” on the Web, accessing and documenting web pages. • The robot categorizes the pages and stores information about the web site and the web pages in a database. • Typically access and may store the following sections of web pages: title, meta tag keywords, meta tag description, and some of the text on the page (usually either the first few sentences or the text contained in heading tags). • Visit the “Web Robots Pages” at http://www.robotstxt.org for more info about web robots.

6. Search EngineDatabase • A database is a collection of information organized so that its contents can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. • Database Management Systems (DBMSs) such as Oracle, SQL Server, or DB2 are used to configure and manage the database. • The web page that displays the results of your search has obtained the information from the database used by the search engine site.

7. Search Engine Search Form • The part you are most familiar with! • The search form is the graphical user interface that allows a user to request a word or phrase to search for. It is usually just a text box and a submit button. • The visitor to the search engine types words (called keywords) related to their search into the text box. • When the form is submitted, the data typed into the text box is sent to a server-side script that searches the database using the keywords you have entered. • The search results (also called a result set) is a list that contains information such as the URLs for web pages that meet your criteria.

8. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) • This result set is formatted in a web page that contains a link to each page along with additional information that might include the page title, a brief description, the first few lines of text, or the size of the page. • Next, the web server at the search engine site sends the search results page to your browser for display. • The order the pages are displayed in the results page may depend on paid advertisements, alphabetical order, and link popularity (more on this later). • Each search engine has their own policy for ordering the search results. • Be aware that these policies can change over time.

9. Designing Web Pagesfor Promotion • Keywords • Brainstorm about terms and phrases that people may use when searching for your site. • They should be words or phrases that describe your web site or business. • These terms and phrases are your keywords. • Create a list of them and don't forget to add common misspellings of your keywords to the list • Description • What is special about your web site that would make someone want to visit? • With this in mind, write a few sentences about your web site and/or business. • This description should be inviting and interesting so that a person searching the Web will choose your site from the listing provided by a search engine or search directory. • Some search engines will display your description in their search engine results.

10. XHTML<meta> tag • The meta tag • A stand alone tag • Placed in the header section • Attributes: • name • content <meta name="value" content="value" /> • Meta tags used by search engines: • name=“keywords” • name=“description”

11. Keywords & DescriptionMeta Tags • The keywords and description meta tags for a web site about a web development consulting firm called “Acme Design” could be configured as follows: <meta name="keywords" content="Acme Design web development e-commerce ecommerce consulting consultation maintenance redesign Akme” /> <meta name="description" content="Acme Design, a premier web consulting group that specializes in E-commerce, web site design, web site development, and web site re-design." />

12. Listing in a Search Engine • Wait until your site is finished – don’t submit “under construction” web sites! • Visit Search Engine and look for “Add URL” or “Submit your Site”, or “Add your Site”, etc. link. • Follow the directions and fill out the form. There is a trend towards fees for listing (called paid inclusion), or for express submission. • A spider from the search engine will visit your web site and index it. • Allow several weeks and test the search engine to see if your site is listed.

13. Preferential Placement • Promotions vary • Google’s AdWords • Yahoo’s Sponsor Results • Check search engines for current preferential placement options

14. Questions • Describe the difference between a search engine and a search directory. Provide an example of each. • Describe the three components of a search engine. • Is it beneficial for a business to pay for site submission? Is it beneficial for a business to pay for preferential listing? Explain.

15. MonitorSearch Engine Listings • Manual Check • Analyze web site logs • Run an automated tool to track and analyze keywords

16. LinkPopularity • Link popularity is a rating determined by a search engine based on the number of sites that link to a particular web site and the quality of the sites that the links are from • For example, a link from a well known site such as Oprah’s site, http://oprah.com, would be considered a higher quality link than one from your friend’s home page on a free web server somewhere. • The link popularity of your web site can determine its order in the search engine results page.

17. Checking LinkPopularity • Analyze your log file. • Visit a link popularity checking service web site • http://linkpopularity.com or http://linkpopularitycheck.com • Report which checks link popularity on a number of search engines. • Visit particular search engines and check for yourself. • At Google and AltaVista type “link:yourdomainname.com” into the search box and the sites that link to yourdomainname.com will be listed.

18. Other Site PromotionActivities • Affiliate Programs • Banner Ads • Banner Exchange • Reciprocal Link Agreements • Newsletters • “Sticky” Site Features • Blogs • RSS Feeds • Personal Recommendations • Web Rings • Newsgroup and Listserv Postings • Traditional Media Ads • Leverage Existing Marketing Materials

19. Questions 1. Are the results returned by various search engines really different? • Choose a place, music group, or movie to search for.Enter the same search terms, such as “Door County” into the following three search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com. • List the URLs of the top three sites returned by each. • Comment on your findings.

20. Questions 2. How can you determine if your web site has been indexed by a search engine? How can you determine which search engines are being used to find your site? 3. List four web site promotion methods that do not use search engines. Which would be your first choice? Why?