Welcome to the first issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter in 2004.
This week, we're telling you who works with whom in the US search engine market so that you can concentrate your search engine marketing efforts on the really important search engines.
In the news: Google chooses banks to go public, about a third of Google may be sold in the IPO giving the company a market value of about $12 billion. Pay per click search engine FindWhat adds a new division and a new tool, Vodafone selects FAST search for worldwide search services and more.
We hope that you enjoy this issue and that it helps you to get more out of your web site. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.
Best regards,
1. Who works with whom in the US search engine market?
Search engines and directories interrelate with other search engines, for instance, they share their database contents to cover more web pages. In addition, the search engines partner with pay per click search engines to supplement their revenue.
It's essential to know which search engines and directories work together. If you want to plan an effective search engine optimization strategy, you must know which search engines cooperate and who gets results from whom.
We've just updated the table that we compiled last year. It tells you which search engines and directories get their search results from whom.
This table will help you in your future search engine marketing efforts: if a search engine doesn't list your web site, you can try to submit to the partner engine which provides secondary or directory results.
AllTheWeb
Gets search results from FAST Search and paid results from Overture.
AltaVista
Has its own database but gets directory results from the Open Directory Project and paid results from Overture.
AOL Search
Gets normal search results and paid results from Google, as well as directory results from the Open Directory Project.
Ask Jeeves
Has its own database but gets additional results from Teoma and paid results from Google.
Google
Has its own database but gets directory results from the Open Directory Project.
HotBot
Gets search results from Inktomi, directory results from the Open Directory Project and paid results from Google. HotBot can also display unfiltered search results from Ask Jeeves, Google and Lycos.
Inktomi
Has its own database.
iWon
Gets search results Google, directory results from the Open Directory Project and paid results from Google.
LookSmart
Has its own database but gets additional results from Inktomi.
Lycos
Gets search results from FAST Search, directory results from the Open Directory Project and paid results from Google.
MSN Search
Gets search results from Inktomi and LookSmart. MSN Search is currently working on its own database.
Netscape Search
Gets search results from Google, directory results from the Open Directory project and paid results from Google.
Overture
Has its own database but gets additional results from Inktomi.
Teoma
Has its own database but gets directory results from the Open Directory Project.
Yahoo
Has its own human-compiled database but gets addition results from Google and paid results from Overture. Yahoo owns AllTheWeb, AltaVista and Inktomi so it will probably switch in the near future from Google to the results of its own companies.
As of 1 January 2004. Note that partnerships and alliances change regularly in the search engine world.
We recommend using the software program Internet Business Promoter (IBP) to submit your web site to the search engines with its own database and to the important directories Open Directory Project and Yahoo.
Tip: Read the recommended resources article below so that your web pages get the best possible rankings on important search engines.
"Google Inc. hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to arrange its initial public offering [...] The fees generated from Google's IPO may be as much as $280 million if the company raises as much as $4 billion based on a 7 percent fee. [...]
Google may sell a stake of about one-third in the IPO, giving the company a market value of about $12 billion, the bankers said. The company will probably register the shares for sale with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month and sell them by April."
"FindWhat completed its acquisition of Miva Corporation, a supplier of e-commerce software and services to small and medium-sized businesses. The approximately $8 million acquisition helps FindWhat tighten its focus on these businesses. [...]
IntelliMap, the new feature, is FindWhat's addition to the flurry of new tools introduced by other paid search providers in the last few months."
"Vodafone [...] announced that FAST Data Search has been selected as the mobile search platform for Vodafone live!.
The new search facility on Vodafone live! enables customers to use their mobile handsets to search across an extensive portfolio of content and an index of worldwide WAP content using a hosted installation of FAST Data Search. "
"Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel said on Monday that the company has only just begun with its grand plans to grow its web search business, highlighting 2004 as a year when search will become omnipresent throughout its family of sites."
"Jupiter Research predicts that Microsoft's decision to stop displaying LookSmart listings in its directory layer of search results will cost the paid inclusion market $150 million in sales in 2004. The researcher expects the overall market will fall from $167 million this year to $110 million in 2004. [...]
Jupiter said the paid inclusion industry should consider changing its pricing model from a pay-per-click system to a flat rate. The researcher said a PPC model heightens the perception that paid inclusion rankings get preferential ranking against regular algorithmic results, while a flat annual fee would ease conflict-of-interest concerns.
"Many US investors are eagerly waiting for Google, the web-search titan, to go public. But those same investors, many still smarting from losses when technology stocks plummeted, may not be ready to jump at just any new technology offering in 2004. [...]
Few analysts expect the public to become giddy about the new tech offerings."
"As wonderful as Internet search engines are, they have a pretty big flaw. They often deliver too much information, and a lot of it isn't quite what we're looking for."
4. Recommended resources: How to optimize your site for Inktomi
Make sure that your web pages are search engine ready before you submit them!
Many people submit their web site URL to many search engines and expect that they receive lots of visitors after doing that.
That doesn't work.
If your web pages aren't optimized for search engines, they probably won't be listed at all, no matter how often you submit them to search engines.
Optimizing your web pages for search engines is so important to the success of your web site that without it, the money you spend on the design of your web site is almost completely wasted.
Every search engine has its own ranking algorithm and it's important that your web site is optimized for these algorithms.
Many online businesses are losing sales just because they don't know how to optimize their web pages for high search engine rankings.
Here's an example on how to optimize your web site for Inktomi:
As mentioned above, Inktomi is very likely to become a very important search engine because Yahoo will be using it for its results in the near future.
But how do you know what's important to Inktomi? What factors cause a high ranking on Inktomi and how should you adjust your web pages so that they get high rankings on Inktomi (and Yahoo and all the other search engines that use Inktomi results)?
Optimizing your web pages for top 10 search engine rankings works like this:
Analyze the current top 10 results on Inktomi
Web sites that currently have a top 10 ranking on Inktomi obviously have the factors that are important for a high Inktomi ranking. That's why it makes sense to analyze them.
Go to HotBot/Inktomi and search for a keyword that is related to your web site. Use a keyword for which you want to have a high ranking.
Take a look at the HTML code of the top 10 results. Find out how often they used the search term, where they used the search term and how they combined the search term. Find out how many other web sites link to the top 10 results and so on.
Adjust your own web pages so that they have the same factors as the top 10 pages.
It's a lot of work to do this manually. Fortunately, there is a software program that makes the whole optimization process a breeze instead of a chore.
IBP makes the whole optimization process as easy as 1-2-3!
It's a lot of work to optimize web pages manually. That's why we developed the Windows software program IBP. It makes optimizing your web pages as easy as 1-2-3:
Enter your favorite keyword.
Select your favorite search engine (for example Inktomi).
Click the Analyze button and you're done.
IBP will give you a detailed checklist report and it will tell you in plain English sentences what you have to do to get top 10 search engine rankings for your favorite keyword(s). Optimizing your web pages has never been so easy!
Optimizing your web pages for high search engines is important to the success of your web site. You'll get more visitors, more customers and more sales.
The all-in-one solution for your web site success
IBP optimizes your web pages for top 10 search engine rankings. In addition, it also submits your web site to all important search engines, Internet directories and special interest sites. It also tracks the results with a professional ranking checker.
Nearly every software download web site gives IBP a 5 out of 5 rating. If you don't have IBP yet, download your copy now.
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