Top Search Engine

Ok, so you may know how the search engines work and you may
know that you need to be listed by them, but do you know
which engines get you more bang for the buck? In this
week’s installment, we will review the top search engines on
the Internet today.
************************************************************
Google
Google has increased in popularity tenfold the past several
years. They have gone from beta testing, to becoming the
Internet's largest index of web pages in a very short time.
Their spider, affectionately named "Googlebot", crawls the
web and provides updates to Google's index

about once a
month.

Google.com began as an academic search engine. Google, by
far, has a very good algorithm of ranking pages returned
from a result, probably one of the main reasons it has
become so popular over the years. Google has several methods
which determine page rank in returned searches.

************************************************************
Yahoo

Yahoo! is one of the oldest web directories and portals on
the Internet today, and the site went live in August of
1994. Yahoo! is a 100% human edited directory, and provides
secondary search results using Google.

Yahoo! is also one of the largest traffic generators around,
as far as web directories and search engines go.
Unfortunately, however, it is also one of the most difficult
to get listed in, unless of course you pay to submit your
site. Even if you pay it doesn't guarantee you will get
listed.

Either way, if you suggest a URL, it is "reviewed" by a
Yahoo! editor, and if approved will appear in the next index
update.

************************************************************
AltaVista

Many who have access to web logs may have seen a spider
named 'scooter' accessing their pages. Scooter used to be
AltaVista's robot. However, since the Feb 2001 site update,
a newer form of Scooter is now crawling the web. Whichever
spider AltaVista uses, it is one of the largest search
engines on the net today, next to Google.

It will usually take several months for AltaVista to index
your entire site, although the past few months scooter
hasn't been deep crawling too well. Unlike Google, AltaVista
will only crawl and index 1 link deep, so it takes a good
amount of time to index your site depending on how large
your site is.

AltaVista gets most of its results from its own index,
however they do pull the top 5 results of each search from
Overture (formerly Goto).

************************************************************
Inktomi

Inktomi's popularity grew several years ago as they powered
the secondary search database that had driven Yahoo. Since
then, Yahoo as switched to using Google as their secondary
search and backend database, however Inktomi is just as
popular now, as they were several years ago, if not more so.
Their spiders are named "Slurp", and different versions of
Slurp crawls the web many different times throughout the
month, as Inktomi powers many sites search results. There
isn't much more to Inktomi then that. Slurp puts heavy
weight on Title and description tags, and will rarely deep
crawl a site. Slurp usually only spider’s pages that are
submitted to its index.

Inktomi provides results to a number of sites. Some of these
are America Online, MSN, Hotbot, Looksmart, About, Goto,
CNet, Geocities, NBCi, ICQ and many more.

************************************************************
Lycos

Lycos is one of the oldest search engines on the Internet
today, next to Altavista and Yahoo. Their spider, named
"T-Rex", crawls the web and provides updates to the Lycos
index from time to time. The FAST crawler provides results
for Lycos in addition to its own database.

The Lycos crawler does not weigh META tags to heavily,
instead it relies on its own ranking algorithm to rank pages
returned in results. The URL, META title, text headings, and
word frequency are just a few of the methods Lycos uses to
rank pages. Lycos does support pages with Frame content.
However, any page that isn't at least 75 words in content is
not indexed.

************************************************************
Excite

Excite has been around the web for many years now. Much more
of a portal than just simply a search engine, Excite used to
be a fairly popular search engine, until companies such as
Google seemed to have dominated the search engine market. As
of recently, Excite no longer accepts submissions of URL's,
and appears to no longer spider. To get into the Excite
search results, you need to be either listed with Overture
or Inktomi.

************************************************************
Looksmart

Getting a listed with Looksmart could mean getting a good
amount of traffic to your site. Looksmart's results appear
in many search engines, including AltaVista, MSN, CNN, and
many others.

Looksmart has two options to submit your site. If your site
is generally non-business related, you can submit your site
to Zeal (Looksmart's sister site ), or if you are a
business, you can pay a fee to have your site listed. Either
method will get you listed in Looksmart and its partner
sites if you are approved.

Once you have submitted your site, and it is approved for
listing it will take up to about 7 days for your site to be
listed on Looksmart and its partner sites.

************************************************************
AOL Search

America Online signed a multiyear pact with Google for Web
search results and accompanying ad-sponsored links, ending
relationships with pay-for-performance service Overture
Services and Inktomi, its algorithmic search provider of
nearly three years


Take some time to register with these search engines as soon
as possible and watch the traffic grow.

BACK TO MAIN PAGE

LEARN SELF IMPROVEMENTS

Read More......

Creating effective ads!

Now lets learn about creating effectif ads!!!
**********************************************************
Creating effective Ads
**********************************************************
Today’s article deals with a subject that we all need to
read, study and understand…how to create an EFFECTIVE ad.

Online advertising on the Internet leaves a lot to be
desired. We have ads that emulate Windows-warning boxes. We
have pop-ups and pop-unders. All of these are developed with
the intent to make people notice them. However, most of them
only end up irritating them. Advertisers, especially those
with small budgets, can't afford to waste money on
ineffective buys. In order to optimize your advertising
buys, you need to concentrate on improving your creative.

Here are some tips that might help:

Step 1: Define clear goals of your advertising campaign
The most important aspect of any advertising

campaign is tohave a clear objective in mind. You may be targeting a
specific group of people, your initial aim may be to target
at least 1000 internet surfers and so on and so forth. Have
a well defined, clear purpose.

Step 2: Identify the most effective sites for achieving your
goals
Sites that are most relevant to your product or service
will, more than likely, be your best bet; but also consider
larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're
trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you
have multiple products or services that appeal to various
target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all
those various segments.

Step 3: Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience
you're targeting
This comes down to understanding the audience of the sites
you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology
site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have
the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. Focus
your campaign.

Step 4: Content of your Ad
Pay particular attention to the content of the Ad. The
content should be such that it clearly distinguishes your
product or service from your competitors’. Have a catchy
headline. The headline is probably the most important part
of the Ad – It is the customer puller.

Step 5: Formulate the specific promotional messages that
correspond to your goals
The promotional messages should concentrate on the major
selling points of your product or service and have a strong
call-to-action.

Step 6: Make the desired action clearly visible
This certainly doesn't mean the desired action should
necessarily blink, bounce or do flips, but it should be
visible within an accepted format for the media you're
using. In the case of the Internet, underlined text links,
"click here" text entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all
ways you can make the desired action clearly visible.

Step 7: Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the
sites where you're advertising
For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in
your text, color schemes in your background, font color
choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try
to conform to the environment so potential customers
visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad.

Step 8: Produce multiple versions of each ad
Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the
promotional message, call-to-action, font faces and color
schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price
testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By
splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of
your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based
on the message that works best.


With these tips, you will not only be able to create an ad,
but you will be able to create an effective ad that does
what it is supposed to do – sell your products and services.

Talk to you soon!

BACK TO MAIN PAGE

LEARN SELF IMPROVEMENTS

Read More......