Website Design, Search Engine Optimization

Some people may be confused over difference between a�search engine and a directory. Why is it important to be in both?To the everyday computer user it may seem transparent. What about those phone calls or emails that tell you they will submit your website to a bazillion search engines. Do they really mean search engines and are there really a �bazillion� of them out there? Next time they call I would ask them that question.Bottom line the major search engines are the most important place to be listed. The potential for traffic is so much greater. Directories can help your websites rankings on the search engines. The directories assist the search engines to find reputable websites to index correctly. Both Google and Yahoo are search engines, they also have their own directories. Some directories are free to be listed in and others can cost money. Yahoo�s directory charges $299.00 for a one year listing, it also has a page rank of 9. This is a great link to have that �may� (I can never promise) boost your listings with many of the well known search engines. Many of the very reputable directories actually have humans behind them ensuring the listing submitted is accurate. When you are looking for a directory to submit to, make sure your site is listed in the area that supports your business. You may want to see where your competitors are listed. There are hundreds if not thousands of different directories out there. Beware there are directories with bad reputations that can also hurt your search engine reputation.Since directories do not have spiders or crawlers that go out into the web indexing information, you must submit to the directories. Search Engines on the other hand crawl the internet for new and valuable information. Many search engines get their information from other search engine crawlers see my list below.For the search engines, it is best to wait for the spiders to come by and find your site. Believe me they will find you if your site is rich in content and everything has been done to make it visible to the spiders. If you must submit, most if not all the search engines do have a submission tool.Here is a listing of the most popular search engines:�

• Google / http://www.google.com / thought to be the most outstanding of the search engines.
• Yahoo / http://www.yahoo.com / was launched in 1994 and is the oldest �directory�. In 2002 it made a shift to crawler based search results.
• Ask / http://www.ask.com / used to be askJeeves, in 1999 it started as the search engine that would let you ask question.
  Some other good choices include: ���MSN Search / http://search.msn.com, now has its own crawler and the reviews are mixed.
  Netscape Search / http://search.netscape.com, uses Google for its main listings
  Lycos / http://www.lycos.com , one of the oldest and uses other service for it�s information
  LookSmart / http://www.looksmart.com , primarily a directory. Commercial sites pay to be listed.
  AltaVista / http://www.altavista.com, in the early days was one of the best, primarily gets its information from Yahoo. Now is a part of Yahoo.
  HotBot / http://www.hotbot.com, provides access to the two major crawlers, ask and google. Kind of fun try it out.
  AOL Search / http://aolsearch.aol.com (aol users) or http://search.aol.com/(for non AOL Users), listings mainly come from Google�s crawler
  AllTheWeb.com / http://www.alltheweb.com, information from Yahoo, but the experience is different

Check out the search engine relationship chart provided by Bruce Clay. You will see how everyone gets information from everyone else.

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