Web Databases and Search Engines

Web Databases and Search Engines
Making the most of your Web Site
Background

A user, when searching for information on a particular topic or product, visits a Web Search site and keys in a few words. The Search Engine then searches it's database for lists of other sites that may have information related to the few "key words" the user input, and presents the user with a list of these sites. The user then looks at the list and selects a few sites to visit, hoping to find information relevant to their original inquiry. Often, there are tens or hundreds of sites presented - only a few of which may be visited by the user. The challange for site owners, is to have your site presented to users who might be interested in what you have to offer.

Database Basics

Several factors affect the results which a user is presented with when performing a search.

Keywords
Keywords are the most important factor in geting noticed by users. When a user asks a database to lookup pages with certain keywords, your page WILL NOT BE A CANDIDATE FOR PRESENTATION of it does not contain any of the user's keywords. Your page MUST contain text which includes all the keywords by which you want to be found.

Getting Registered
The next item, and the one usually most questioned, is how to have a database collect information from your site - or put a different way, how to get registered.

When the Web was relatively new (only a few years ago) Search Engines prided themselves in being the best, or indexing the most pages. Today, there are millions of sites, and even the best Search Engines have retracted such claimes. The truth is that it is difficult at best for a Seach Engine to properly index ALL the text on ALL Web pages. Many Search Engines have fallen far short of their original goals, to index the entire Web. The result for site operators is that it has become increasingly difficult to "get registered". Patience and diligence are key when attempting to register a page or a site.

Presentation Order
The order in which sites are presented to the user varies from database to database. Some Search Engines present sites in alphabetical order. Many Web Searchers attempt to rate the quality of a site's content with respect to the search; that is, put the most relevant sites on the top of the list which the user sees. In each case, there is no guarantee that any particular site will come up on top of a particular search.

In particular, there is no way to GUARANTEE that a particular site will come up on top (or even in the top 10) of any given search (with one exception ... it is rumored that some larger organizations have PAID certain Search Engine Operators so that they always come up on top of a given search).

Database Efficiency
There is one important facet of Search Engines which must be understood - and often tolerated - when dealing with databases: They are independently owned, operated, programmed and maintained. Though each Search Engine attempts to do basically the same two functions, 1) collect information and 2) give it back to users, the efficiency and fairness by which they perform this task varies widely.

The bottom line is that there are no guarantees. The Internet is only a large cooperative of people and organizations, and the efficiency of "The Net" depends heavily on how much each individual or organization wants to do.

The "key word" to remember when attempting to register your site with many databases is PATIENCE.

Getting Noticed - Page Preparation

Key Words
When a Search Engine visits a page with intent to catalog it in its database, it reads the page, extracts words it thinks are important, and includes them in its database for future users. Many Search Engines recognize the number of times a keyword is on a page relative to other words, and rates these pages higher when someone uses that keyword to perform a search. Some index the entire page, while others only index the first few lines. It is therefore important, at least on the Home Page, to maximize the number of keywords and reduce the number of extraneous text, especially in the first sentence or two. In general, it is best to be consice, descriptive, and use as many keywords as possible in your home page, without flooding the page with key words.

Identifying key words is critical to being found on the Web. To select your key words, think about what words you would use to find your product or service if you were searching the Web. Give these words a rating, and list them from most important to least important. Then re-read your Home Page, and evaluate how many of your most important key words exist, and how many times they appear.

(Side note: Some people when designing their Web Pages, put nothing but keywords on their page. This worked well for a little while, however, the Search Engine authors soon caught on, and now check for pages with too many repeting key words - and filter these out! Not only is this not good "Netiquete", it no longer works!)

Web Page Title
Many Search Engines also look at the Web Page Title (that's the title that comes up as the browser Window Name) when indexing a page. Some of these also give a higher weighting to words found in the title. If at all possible, consider using keywords in the page title, like "Sewell Computer: Web Site Design, Development, and Hosting".

Meta Tags
Meta Tags are a great way of including both key words and a brief description in in your page. Meta Tags are not normally visible when viewing a page, but many Search Engines read Meta Tags to get a specific list of key words, in addition to possibly trying to extract words from the text of the page. If a client supplies key words and a brief description, Sewell includes these in the Home Page's Meta Tags. (You can SEE Meta Tags, if they exist, by selecting "View" and "Document Source" from your browser's menu. Look at the top of the displayed window for META statements.)

Getting Noticed - Database Submission

With that in mind, the best we can do (without spending a lot of money) to get registered with the Databases is to SUBMIT the Web Address of certain pages (usually the Home Page) to Search Engines for their consideration.

Free Submissions Sewell regularly visits Web Databases such as Yahoo!, Webcrawler, Excite, Lycos, Open Text, Infoseek, HotBot, Alta Vista, etc. to see if our clients are registered. If not, we re-submit the page address in question.

Clients are also encouraged to submit their own page address to Web Databases. However, if a Client registers a page, then all subsequent registrations of that page to that database (ie. in the event of a page change) should be done by the client. Many Search Engines ask for the E-Mail address of the person submitting the page address, and will not accept any subsequent changes from others.

Paid Submissions There exist companies on the Web that make it their business to submit Web addresses to databases. Prices range from about $30 to $500 to submit your address to 20 to 500 Web Databases. This can certainly increase your chances of being registered, but still there are no guarantees. See the Web Database Submission Services page for more information.

Paid Banner Advertisements Many Web Databases accept advertisements in the form of a Graphic Banner strategically placed on a page. The idea is that you pay to have your "name in lights" at the top of a search page when results are displayed. Some Search Engines go so far as to target your advertisement toward people who search for key words you specify. Prices can be as high as $10,000 per month (Yahoo!) for a rotating banner add; as such, this kind of advertismenet is generally limited to businesses with a hefty advertising budget.

Strictly speaking, this kind of exposure is NOT registration, but it does give you exposure on a particular Web Database.