General:
Use a highly descriptive TITLE (40 characters if submitting the same page to multiple search engines, some will accept more). Failure to put strategic keywords in the page title is one of the main reasons why perfectly relevant web pages may be poorly ranked.
Include a META tag description (200 characters, some accept more). Include the description on your page also, preferably at the beginning. The first 25 words of page content are the most crucial for indexing relevancy.
Create META tag keywords that contain comma-separated phrases. (Maximum of 1000 characters) Pick phrases of two or more words, and you'll have a better shot at success. Use an assortment of synonyms that accurately describe your site. The overuse and repetition of keywords may result in a lower relevancy score and possible omission from the search engine.
Repeating a word over and over in a Web page is known as "spamming" and has a negative effect on a site's ranking. More information on Spamming.
For sites using frames, the file containing the <FRAMESET> tag should include a META description tag and a META keywords tag which describe the entire site. Also provide a <NOFRAMES> section containing text which describes the entire site.
Each document gets a grade based on how many of the search terms it contains, where the words are in the document, and how close to each other they are.
Tables can "push" your text further down the page, making keywords less relevant because they appear lower on the page. This is because tables break apart when search engines read them. Consider how tables might affect your page, but don't necessarily stop using them. I like tables, and I'll continue to use them.
Large sections of JavaScript can also have the same affect as tables. The search engine reads this information first, which causes the normal HTML text to appear lower on the page. Place your script further down on the page, if possible.
*NOTE* Excite and Web Crawler will soon be using Meta Tags in their relevancy ratings.
| SEARCH ENGINE OR DIRECTORY | INDEXES META TAGS | GENERAL INFORMATION | FRAMES SUPPORT | IMAGE MAP SUPPORT | URL AVAILABLE FOR SEARCHING |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WEBCRAWLER | NO | Indexes every word on your page up to 1MB of text. The keywords under which your page will be found in a search are the words on your page, and nothing else. You don't need to submit keywords or categories along with your URL. | NO | YES | 2-3 weeks |
| INFOSEEK | YES | Select sites are chosen by our editors from the index based on their editorial value, traffic and the number of links to the sites. If META tags are not used to describe a site, the Web page description will be derived from other text on the page. | NO
When submitting via the AddURL feature, all pages linked from the frameset have to be submitted as the spider does not follow all the links. |
YES | 2-3 weeks |
| ALTA VISTA | YES | Submit only one URL. The crawler, Scooter, will eventually explore your entire site by following links. | YES | YES | typically in less than a day |
| EXCITE | NO | Submit only one URL, that of the topmost page of your site. The spider will crawl through the rest of the site, following and indexing all the related links. The spider indexes the full text of the pages it so there's no need to submit a list of keywords. Nor do you need to give summaries or descriptions -- they're generated automatically. | NO | NO | 2-3 weeks |
| LYCOS | NO | You may submit more than one URL from your site as long as the URLs represent distinct webpages. The spider will usually travel down one level from the page you submit. Do not submit webpages with these symbols in the URL: ampersand (&), percent sign (%), equals sign (=), dollar sign ($) or question mark (?). The spider does not recognize them. | NO | NO | 2-3 weeks |
| YAHOO | NO | A directory where sites are placed in categories by Yahoo. Surfers, will visit and evaluate your suggestions and decide where they best belong. Suggest your site from the appropriate category. If you don't hear from them your page was not chosen to be included in their index. I recommend that you should not resubmit your site for at least 1-2 months If you continually submit your site to Yahoo they will probably ignore it altogether. They look for strong site content. And your page must be focused on the topic. If your main page includes a wide range of topics you will probably not get listed. | N/A | N/A | 2-3 weeks |
| HOT BOT | YES | If you don't receive a confirming email message from them within 3-4 weeks, then resubmit. They seem to be slow in picking up some pages. | NO | NO | 2-4 weeks |
| NEWHOO | NO | A hierarchical web directory, organized by subject. The directory is maintained by editors who join NewHoo and choose to review & maintain sites listed in one of more NewHoo categories. Find the most appropriate category. | N/A | N/A | Varies depending on how quickly editors get to your page. |
Two to four weeks after submitting your page you should go visit each search engine. Type in some keywords that best represent your site and check the results. Or you can try one of the many URL checkers out there. I think Position Agent. and Self Promotion are good. Also try MetaCrawler search site. You can check 7 major search engines at once.
When using one of these search engines, here is what you are really using:
Search.com ..... you're using Infoseek
AOL NetFind ..... you're using Excite
GoTo.com … you're using Excite
LookSmart …you're using Alta Vista
Snap ... you're using Inktomi (Hot Bot)
MSN Internet Search ... you're using Inktomi
Back to Web Page Design Tools