Thu Jul 01 14:24:12 CST 2004
What is a Search Engine?
A Search Engine is a way for internet users to find websites about a certain subject quickly and easily, by simply typing in a few key words.
Sometimes abbreviated to SEs, Search Engines are one of the most powerful ways that a website can build up site traffic.
Simply put - a Search Engine can send potential customers to a business.
This is why Search Engines should form the core of any online marketing venture. Because if you know how Search Engines work, you can make them work to your advantage.
If you know how to, you can make Search Engines send you thousands of prospective clients every day.
Which Search Engines are important?
There is an incredible array of Search Engines out there. Some will only store information on local sites and interests, or others will serve as a way for users to search academic journals.
Other search engines work globally only, and a small number of the biggest and best has emerged from a crowd of thousands.
Google is the most important of all search engines because it's results dominate the entire search engine industry. It currently supplies some of the biggest names on the internet.
Google provides results for Yahoo, Netscape, and AOL, for example, not to mention a string of other important companies and portals.
Google also provides a results directly to the public, and performs approximately 270 million searches per day.
Because of this, Google is widely believed to command over 80% of the current Search Engine market.
However, changes are afoot. There are a number of smaller - but still highly significant - search engines being sold off and bought.
In 2003, Yahoo bought Inktomi, which also supplies search results to a number of other Search Engines. And MSN - the MicroSoft Network - dropped Looksmart as a supplier of information for the MSN search engine.
On top of that, Search Engines in themselves are constantly updating how they rank sites in the "search engine results pages" (SERPs). The "Florida" update at Google of November 2003 completely changed how Google indexes websites.
The world of the Search Engines and Search Engine Optimisation is a very dynamic beast. Google is currently the most important, but the market is still in motion. It is up to Proffessional SEO's to ensure that they follow all such trends and accomodate them.
How Google indexes websites
Many people think that once a site is submitted, that it will be indexed fairly quickly. This is not true.
The way Google indexes is to follow a link, or submitted URL, to a page. Once there, the Googlebot will index that page and that page only.
This process can take merely hours or a couple of days.
That page will then appear in the Google index.
It's likely that the page will rank well in the index - and higher than it normally should - because Google traditionally likes new content. As the page indexed is new content, then it gets a sudden and high listing.
And then is almost immediately dropped from the index.
Many webmasters panic here and sign up to SEO forums to ask what they did wrong, and ask why they were penalised.
They have not been penalised - it is merely a quirk of how Google indexes.
What has actually happened is that the Googlebot has made a record of the URLs on that page indexed, and self-submitted them for further indexing in a process known as "deep crawling".
After about 4-6 weeks the site is then heavily indexed, and the results come up within days after this on the Google search index, where they will stay.
However, beware the sting in the tail - Google may be inflating the importance of your pages, because they are seen as "fresh content". This can last for up to three months, after which those pages that fail to continue to justify their higher ranking will then be dropped.
And then your site is properly and fairly represented on the Google index - according to Google's methods of appraisals.
What is Search Engine Optimisation?
Search Engine Optimisation seeks to form a special relationship with different Search Engines, so that for a range of important key words, internet users are directed to your company website rather than your competitors.
In doing so, significant internet traffic can be driven to a website. More important, this traffic is targeted.
Because Search Engine Optimisation does this, it provides a unique opportunity to increase sales and revenue, therefore profit.
However, it always remains the responsibility of the company to ensure that they capitalise on this by proper brand marketing and sales presentation to prospective customers.
It is also important to note that a lot of companies claim to be able to offer Search Engine Optimisation - yet actually cannot.
Content SEO vs Professional SEO
The SEO industry is actually composed of two industries - content SEO's and professional (link building) SEO's.
Content SEO is almost indistinguishable from copywriting - the process of writing 'copy' (text) on pages. The SEO element comes mainly from use of titles, headers, and frequent reference to keywords on the page.
Professional SEO's, on the other hand, will design or redesign a website to maximise internal links and keyword content - and more importantly, will build external link networks to promote a user's site.
The distinction is highly important, not least that Google, repsonsible for 80% of all internet searches, is a links based Search Engine. Without onsite and offsite links building, Content SEO by itself is next to worthless for any generally competitive keywords.
Until the the Content SEOs accept the distinction between mere content writing and link building (Copywriters vs Professional Search Engine Optimisers), then they mislead not just themselves and the industry, but consumers as well.
In that regards, they commit the worst of mistake of business ethics. Which is all the more ironic because Content-only SEOs sometimes even call themselves "Ethical SEO's".
When looking for SEO services, be extremely aware of the difference between the two. The difference can be one of having a well-written site - or a well written site that also ranks well.