How the Search Engines Work

Using the Search Engines

What is the Internet? Search Engine Positioning? Search Engine Optimization? Let's look for a moment at some basic definitions and concepts.

Basic Introduction

The Internet has been considered by many as the major innovation of our time - CNN listed it as #1. It has shown major influence in almost area of our life. Organic and life-like, it acts much like a huge information library or messaging system, moving information from a source to a destination at the speed of light. Unlike an encyclopedia, however, there is no assurance that the information is correct, is legal to send, or has value. Anyone can put anything out there.

This information, in itself, has no organizational structure. I can create one or more web sites, put them on some host system at near zero cost, and then watch the effect of my web site on others. I can sell a product, sell a service, provide information, entertain, or do thousands of other interesting things using my web site. People accessing my web site might be able to find the weather in Moscow, contact a lost classmate, find an obscure product, download a song I created, watch a movie, download a book, or thousands of other tasks. Anyone can create a web site. You can build a family web site to keep relatives informed and get everyone in the family - including the kids - involved in creating it.

The trick, of course, is finding what you want on the Internet. There is no structure, no inherent index, no rules. That's where the search engines enter the picture. Search engines connect your problem to one or more web sites that might provide a solution. Search engines operate just as organically as the web sites themselves, selecting sites dynamically based on "phrases" that you use to query to search engines. A given query to a major search engine can easily return thousands of web pages that might be the answer your problem. If you have created a web site targeted to a specific topic, you want your site, of course, to be near the top of that returned list in the query results. How do you do that? That's what this book is all about.

SEM, or search engine marketing, refers to using the search engines for Internet promotion of a web site. The topic has two branches - Paid Search Marketing and Organic (Free) Search Engine Marketing.

Search engine positioning is the art of getting a web site placed near the top for a specified query in the free search engines. This is also called search engine optimization. A professional SEO is a person skilled in doing this. The art refers to learning how to get your site in the free engines and get a competitive position relative to other sites in your category. Most of this book is concerned with SEO strategies and deals with optimizing for search engines. In Chapter 13 we will take a look at the paid search marketing. It is generally a good idea to use both. Paid search marketing doesn't have to be expensive.

As of January 1, 2002 there were 160 million domain hosts worldwide. At the same time, 88% of these web pages were not indexed in any major search engine. Of the pages indexed, 88% were not optimized. What this means is that if you think you have a lot of competitors when you try to build a web site on your topic, probably only about 12% of those have optimized their pages. The water isn't as deep as you think it is.

Depending upon what you read, about 80-85% or more of Internet users use the search engines to find the site for which they are looking. For a small business without much brand identification, getting a strong search engine position is often one of the most important marketing steps you can take. It's very cost effective, as most are free. Your only "cost" is the time and resources to get your site positioned well - and that's what our book is all about.

The major search engines are Google and Yahoo. MSN has released their own MSN Search and expect to be a major competitor. Another one is Teoma, but it is a paid engine. Many of the other engines purchase their database information from these. The Open Directory Project is a free directory that feeds its database into many of the search engines. What this means, in summary, is that if you are in the Open Directory Project, Google, Yahoo and MSN, you are in almost all of the rest of the search engines.

How do you get your site in the search engines?

How do you get your pages returned at the top of a listing when someone queries the engines?

Can I buy a position in the engines?

What are the major engines, and how do they differ?

Depending upon what you read, about 80-85% or more of Internet users use the search engines to find the site for which they are looking. For a small business without much brand identification, getting a strong search engine position is often one of the most important marketing steps you can take. Most are free.

See Carl's book on Web Site Promotion and Search Engine Positioning for more..

Let us Help You with Your Web Site Design or Analyze Your Current Web Site...

Let us Help You Get a Great Position in the Search Engines...

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