Don't get stranded in cyberspace - creating a business Web site
Black Enterprise, April, 1999 by Rebecca Frances Rohan
* To reach customers and members of the press who are actively trying to find your product or service, you'll need to attract Web spiders--the "robots" that catalog sites for search engines. Submit your site to the top search engines, such as Alta Vista (www.altavista.com), Hot Bot (www.hotbot.com), and Lycos (www. lycos.com), by hand, not through a submission service. Follow all directions at each site to the letter. After that, feel free to submit to the services that promote your site to several search engines without charge. Think twice about paying for services that submit to hundreds of -search engines, since most people use only the top sites.
* Learn and cater to all important search engine criteria. Different search engines choose different parts of the page to categorize your site--some use META tags, which can contain descriptions of your site that aren't visible on the page but can be seen by search engines. Others use the first few words of text, while some use all the words on your site. Links from other sites can be important to your search engine rankings, since some gauge your site's popularity by links to you from other sites. In order to make sure your site comes up ahead of others in a search, find out what each search engine looks for, and supply it. To learn what your pages need to get specific spiders on your side, visit http://searchenginewatch.com.
Remember, build it and they will come applies only in the movies. An unpublicized site is like the tree that falls unnoticed in the woods. You'll never know if it makes any noise.
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Factors that affect if and when a page is indexed Search Engine Alta Vista Excite (Size) Millions Big (140) Medium (60) Pages crawled per day 10 million 3 million Freshness 1 day to 6 weeks 1 day to 6 weeks Submittted pages 1 to 2 days Within 2 weeks Non-submitted pages 1 day to 1 month Up to 6 weeks Depth No limit No limit Frames Support Yes No Image Maps Yes No Password Protected Sites No Yes Link Popularity No Yes Learns Frequency Yes No Robots.txt Yes Yes Meta Robots Yes Yes URL Status Check Yes No Search HotBot/ Engine Inktomi Infoseek (Size) Millions Big (110) Small (40) Pages crawled per day Up to 10 million -- Freshness 1 day to 2 weeks 1 day to 2 months Submitted pages within 2 weeks Within 2 days Non-submitted pages 2 weeks 1 to 2 months Depth No limit Sample Frames Support No No Image Maps No Yes Password Protected Sites No Yes Link Popularity Yes No Learns Frequency Yes Yes Robots.txt Yes Yes Meta Robots Yes Yes URL Status Check Yes Yes Search Northern Engine Lycos Light (Size) Millions Small (40) Big (110) Pages crawled per day 6 to 10 million 3 million Freshness 2 to 5 weeks 2 to 4 weeks Submittted pages Normally 2 to 3 weeks 2 to 4 weeks Non-submitted pages Normally 2 to 3 weeks 2 to 4 weeks Depth Sample No limit Frames Support No Yes Image Maps No Yes Password Protected Sites Yes Yes Link Popularity Yes No Learns Frequency No No Robots.txt Yes Yes Meta Robots Yes Yes URL Status Check Form No Search Web Engine Crawler (Size) Millions Tiny (2) Pages crawled per day -- Freshness Updated weekly Submittted pages Within 2 weeks Non-submitted pages Within 2 weeks Depth Sample Frames Support Yes Image Maps Yes Password Protected Sites No Link Popularity Yes Learns Frequency No Robots.txt Yes Meta Robots Yes URL Status Check No
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