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Search Engine Myths And Realities
About the Author: Vann Baker is the president of Design-First, a marketing company specializing in corporate identity and collateral development. Vann has been helping small businesses and Fortune 500 companies to create brochures, newsletters, catalogs, websites and more for over 20 years. www.design-first.com
Search engines have been around since the early days of the web, helping Internet users to find information as web sites have grown from a few hundred to millions in number. But why is it that some web sites always appear on the first couple of search results pages and other web sites seem to be buried within hundreds or thousands of results or don't appear at all?
Search engines utilize "robots" or "spiders"--applications which visit web sites in search of new or updated pages, usually recording the full text of every page within the site and following external links. However, most search engines utilize HTML "META" tags in order to users find specific information.
META tags can be keywords or a paragraph that describes the web site or company and are hidden from view. Meta tags allow you to offer alternative words someone might use in a search, such as a plural spelling.
Just as important as Meta tags is the TITLE of your web page. Your title should be descriptive and use some words not in your keyword list.
All search engines work differently. For instance, Lycos creates web site titles and descriptions from the visible text within your page. InfoSeek uses the META tags allowing you to control the description that appears as a search result. WebCrawler uses the words within the TITLE tag to use for the name of your page. Excite does not use META tags, but looks for common words or themes within a page then selects sentences for a search result summary that either contain these words or that conveys the overall theme.
What follows are some myths and realities about search engines that should help you to get your web site listed properly.
Myth 1: I don't need to worry about search engines since all our marketing materials contain our web site address.
Reality: If you haven't listed your site in at least the top ten search engines, if someone tries to find your web site by company name (maybe they've misplaced your brochure or business card) they may not find your web site. If nothing else, make sure you have submitted your site with Google, Yahoo!, Lycos, Excite, HotBot, AltaVista, InfoSeek, Snap.com, Magellan, Webcrawler, GoTo.com.
Myth: 2: Submitting your site to a search engine means your web site will automatically be listed within a few days.
Reality: Submitting to most of the search engines simply means you have notified them that your web site exists. Usually they will then send out "spiders" or "netbots" to visit your web site and index your web site. However, there is no guarantee that a search engine will list your site and it may be necessary to submit your site several times.
Myth 3: All you need to do is get listed in a few search engines and customers will beat a path to your website and orders will come flooding in.
Reality: Search engines are nothing more than databases. How well it works is largely dependent upon the database design, how the user utilizes the search engine and where you are listed. Each search engine has a different approach as to how your site will be listed and where it will be listed, but most allow you use a keyword search. If a potential customer is searching a keyword that's not contained on your home page they may not find your home page.
Also, some search engines like Yahoo! default to a very general search pattern that will bring up thousands of matches whereas a more narrow search or word combination will often bring up fewer results, but more accurate results. Unfortunately, this is not something you can control.
Myth 4: By using the right keywords my web site will appear on the first results page.
Reality: Each search engine may have different criteria for creating a match. In fact, some search engines "score" web site matches in their database for "relevancy." Relevancy goes beyond matching keywords or phrases, but often looks at the number of sites your web site is linked to and how relevant those sites are to the phrase being searched.
Additionally, some search engines look for matches within your home page tag and words that appear as part of your web page content. A strategy would be to create a META tag list using a combination of general and specific keywords or combination of words. Remember, you are relying on the user to pick an appropriate phrase.
Myth 5: I need to be listed in every search engine.
Reality: While there are now hundreds of search engines or directories, the good news is the top ten are usually where people start looking for information. Specialty search engines that your customers may use to find information is well worth being listed in.
Myth 6: I can list myself--it's just a few forms to fill out and besides, there are lots of free listing services.
Reality: Manually listing with each search engine can be very time consuming, especially if you need to resubmit your web site with search engines that do not list your site. There are some "free" services that claim to list you in hundreds of search engines, but often they put your e-mail name on what ends up being spam lists. You get what you pay for and then some. Consider using a site submission service like Submit-It. (www.submit-it.com) While not free, this web site offers reasonable site submission services and a wealth of information.
Myth 7: Links from my site to other web sites is not important to search engines, or is it?
Realty: The number of links and how relevant they are to your web site content can be very helpful in getting your web site from the bottom of a search results list to near the top. Link your site to industry web sites and non-competitors and update this page on a regular basis.
Myth 8: I can use "phantom" pages with different keyword sets and get listed several times in a search engine.
Reality: While this approach has been used some search engines will disqualify your web site and not list you. The idea is to have a number of web pages with metatag information that refresh to your main page. If only one or two search engines are bringing you all the web site traffic you need, then this approach may be worthwhile, but if most of the search engines don't list your site, it may be counter-productive.
Myth 9: I don't need to list my web site since the search engines send out spiders and robots to find new web sites.
Reality: Submitting your site to a search and making them aware of your web site will speed up the listing process.
Ten Tips to Better Search Engine Performance
1) Take a sneak peek at what your competition is doing. Use your browsers "View Source" to look at the HTML code behind the page. You can do keyword searches with several search engines and then look at the source code of those web sites that are listing high on the search result page. You can spot their keywords and description and title information right at the top of the source code.
2) Make use of tags. Meta tags are HTML words and descriptions that the user does not see, but which many of the search engines use to catalog your web site. Example: and
3) Try not to repeat phrases or word combinations one right after another. Some search engines will "disqualify" or not list your web site at all.
4) Try to limit the number of keywords and the length of your description. If you use more than say 30 keywords, put the most important or descriptive ones towards the front of your list. If the search engines "cuts off" your list after a limited number of characters, there's a good chance the most important words will be in the search engine database.
5) Be sure to use a descriptive tag. Instead of Your Company Name try something like: Your Company Name - Specializing in providing circuit breakers, lighting fixtures, motor controls, lighting . Often search engines will look for matches to keyword searches in the title of the home page.
6) Use tags for photos and graphics. ALT tags are used by browsers to display the name of a graphic as it loads or is used by people using your web site with Auto Load Images option turned off. Some search engines will take these into account when searching for matches. Example: .
7) If you use frames, you may have trouble getting the search engines to list your site properly. If you look at the page source for a framed site, there is usually no useful information for a search engine to index.
Search engines treat frames as if they are links within your main page. What happens is while your main page will be indexed, the search engine will return later to index your secondary pages as if they were external links. Be sure the main page (index.htm or default.htm) page has some descriptive text between the and tag. This descriptive text should contain the most important keywords.
8) Check your web site's ranking periodically by several keywords. Also check to make sure your web site has not be dropped or disqualified. Just go to the different search engines and search by your company name. If you have been dropped, go back and examine your tags and other information to make sure you are not causing the search engine to not list your site.
9) While Yahoo! is more difficult to get listed in, it is worth the effort. The first thing is finding the appropriate category to be listed under. This may take some time to determine the best categories for your web site. Once you are in a specific category, at the bottom of the page is a "Suggest a Site" link you can use to submit your URL. Yahoo will allow you to be listed in more than one category, but will only let you suggest one extra category at a time.
10) Try not to "hide" mass amounts of hidden keywords at the bottom of your document. Search engines will often calculate keywords by how many times they appear on a page and if you have too many repeating words, some search engines may penalize you.