Effective technique for achieving high rankings is to design doorway pages

One effective technique for achieving high rankings is to design doorway pages that emphasize specific keywords. You can improve your chances of achieving a top 10 ranking on an engine even further if you customize those doorway pages to the specific engine you wish to submit to. That being the case, we've provided an analysis of each of the major search engines.

Please do not read only the Engine by Engine Analysis. There are valuable tips in the previous sections that apply to nearly all engines. Those sections will also allow you to better understand the information contained in this section.

Each search engine listing includes a quick reference table. This table is intended to provide at-a-glance information about the particular search engine's relevancy scoring criteria and other related information. It primarily includes information that varies by engine. There are many factors that apply to most engines that are described in previous chapters.

It is important to note that different search engines change their relevancy scoring criteria from time to time, and as a result, this information may need to be updated frequently.

Quick Reference Tables Explained

1. URL to the engine - The Web site address for the search engine.

2. Must submit EACH page? - Many search engines spider much of your site, but you may submit pages individually to ensure they get indexed, since the spiders generally only explore so many levels of your site before stopping. Others, such as Infoseek, only index the pages you submit.

3. How long to index my page? - How long it will take you to get added to each search engine.

4. Recognizes and supports META tags? - Whether the search engine pays any attention to META tags. If the answer is YES, then make sure that you include META tags on a doorway page that is specific to this search engine. If NO, you need not waste your time preparing META tags for this engine.

5. Are searches case sensitive? - Whether the search engine notices if keywords have been capitalized or not. In other words, if the engine is case sensitive, a default search for "bank" would yield a different list of sites than a search for "Bank." If the search engine is case sensitive, include capitalized AND lowercase versions of important keywords in your submission or META tags.

6. Does a spider index the site? - Whether the search engine sends a spider to explore your web site.

7. Uses data entered on submission form only? - Whether the search engine uses the data you fill out on the submission form to determine your Web site's rank rather than spidering the site and indexing the actual contents. You can assume that if the engine uses submission form data that it doesn't spider the content of your site. However, a real person may look at your site to make sure it matches the description you typed in.

8. Is page popularity a factor? - Whether the search engine uses some measurement of how many other Web sites are linked to you as part of its relevance scoring criteria.

9. Alphabetical ranking used? - Whether the search engine uses any alphabetical or ASCII hierarchy measurement to determine your site's relevancy score.

10. Keyword weight plays a role? - Whether the search engine visits your Web site and measures the number of keywords as compared to the total number of words on the page as part of its relevancy scoring criteria.

11. Title tag considered for relevancy? - Whether the search engine considers the title tag as part of its relevancy scoring criteria.

12. Prominence of keywords in title tag important? - Whether the search engine considers the prominence of keywords in the title tag as part of its relevancy scoring criteria.

13. Frequency of keywords in title tag important? - Whether the search engine considers the frequency of keywords in the title tag as part of its relevancy scoring criteria.

14. Comment tags considered for relevancy? - Whether the search engine considers the comment tag (the tag that looks like this: <!--) as part of its relevancy scoring criteria.

15. Max. length of title accepted - This line tells you how many words or characters this search engine will accept in the title tag. It's best to not exceed this number.

16. Max. length of keyword META tag - How many words or characters this search engine will accept in the keyword META tag.

17. Max. length of description field you can submit - How many words or characters this search engine will accept in the description field of their submission form, if they have a
submission form.

18. How to check to see if you're listed - How to see if the search engine has a record of your Web site in its database.

19. How to check your link popularity - When supported, this is how you would check each engine for the number of other URLs or pages that show links to your Web site. Not all search engines support this feature.

20. E-mail support - An e-mail address for communications concerning your ranking in a particular search engine or directory. Don't expect all search engines to reply to your questions, or at least to reply promptly. Many are very busy and appear to make it a policy to ignore most e-mail. At times, you may get a response though, so it's worth a shot.

21. Total documents indexed - The total number of Web sites or other Web documents that the search engines represent as included in their index.

22. Total page views - Total number of times a search engine's main search page was accessed and used. This number does not necessarily suggest the number of people who conducted actual keyword searches. It is an important number as it gives you some indication of how many people are using the search engine. When this information was not available, we attempted to substitute another metric that offers insight into the search engine's or directory's relative value to Web site marketers.

23. Add/ Remove URL - The location within the search engine where you submit your URL for indexing or where you submit your site title and description. Some engines dynamically generate or serve this page so the actual URL to that page cannot be listed. In those cases, we identify the location of the button or link to this page.