| The Axandra newsletter archive - 9 March 2004 |
| Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.
This week, we're informing you about the most important search sites for your web site. In the news: Major changes at Ask Jeeves, Yahoo offers a free site submission feature, Mamma.com and Overture announce geo-targeting, Google plans an improved crawler program and much more. Table of contents:
We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your web site. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends. Best regards, |
| 1. The most important search sites for your web site success |
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Many webmasters face the problem that they don't know for which search engine they should optimize their web sites.
Of course, Google is the most important search engine for most webmasters. But which other search engines are also important for your web site success? Internet analysis service Nielsen/NetRatings recently released information about the most popular search sites in the United States, as based on audience reach. Audience reach is the percentage of US home and work Internet users estimated to have searched on each site at least once during the month through a web browser or some other "online" means. The results of the study can help you to decide which search sites could bring more visitors to your site. The most important US search sites, based on audience reach
39 percent of active Internet surfers (or 59.3 million unique viewers) used Google to do searches. The search tools at Yahoo and MSN attracted approximately 30 percent each. Yahoo had 45.7 million unique users and MSN 44.6 million. What does this mean to your web site? It's obviously important to optimize your web pages for Google. However, the information also shows that you should not rely solely on Google.
What about European search sites? Nielsen/NetRatings also released information about the most popular European search sites. The results for European search sites are very similar. Based on audience reach, the most important European search sites are Google (47.3%), MSN Search (23.1%), Yahoo Search (10.8%), AOL Search (5.0%), T-Online Suche (3.7%), Voila Search (2.9%) and Lycos Europe Search (2.7%).It doesn't matter if you target the US market or the European market: don't focus too much on Google. Although it's currently the major player, you'll get better results if you also take other major search engines into account. If you don't know how to optimize your web pages for Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or MSN Search, read the "Recommended resources" below. |
| 2. Search engine news of the week |
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Ask Jeeves denounces paid inclusion "Ask Jeeves will stop accepting advertiser payments for inclusion in its searchable Web database, a move to draw competitive lines between it and Yahoo's new search engine." In another article, AskJeeves explains dropping paid inclusion: "'When I say it impacted relevance,' said Jim Lanzone, vice president of product management at Ask Jeeves, 'I mean both good and bad. Sometimes [something ranked] better than it should have ranked, sometimes worse.'"
"Ask Jeeves said Thursday that it is buying Interactive Search Holdings, owner of several destination sites including iWon.com, Excite.com and MyWay.com, for about $343 million in cash and stock. [...] 'This acquisition will double our market share, enhance our ability to compete in the fast-growing search market, and is expected to increase the financial returns to our shareholders,' Ask Jeeves' CEO Steve Berkowitz said in a statement."
Yahoo now also offers a free site submission option. You need a Yahoo account to submit your site.
It seems that the Yahoo owned search engines AllTheWeb and AltaVista are also undergoing some changes. Here's the official statement from the AllTheWeb submission page: "We are currently making improvements to our free site submission service, which is temporarily unavailable. Please check back here frequently. We will soon be re-launching free site submit."
In a search engine discussion forum, a Google employee said that Google might update its database daily this year and that a new Google spider that understands JavaScript might be on the way.
"The new geo-targeting feature will allow advertisers to target their pay-per-click campaign by selecting one or more countries worldwide as campaigns will only be displayed in the selected target markets."
"Shares of Mamma.com gained almost 26 percent on Wednesday as investor speculation continued to fuel a rally in which the price of the small Web-search company's stock has more than tripled in the past two days."
Another innovation planned is the ability for an advertiser to set up a Web page through Overture that has information like hours of operation, address and phone number."
"Yahoo has now added a Content Acquisition Program (CAP) that offers enhanced coverage to both commercial (paid inclusion) and noncommercial (nonpaying) data sources. [...] Public Site Match (the noncommercial side) promises to introduce major new content sources from databases generally tagged as 'invisible' or 'deep' Web sources. [...] The Public Site Match service acquires content from the dot-gov, dot-edu, and dot-org side of the Internet (i.e., government, academia, and nonprofit agencies).
"ODP descriptions and categories will not appear alongside search results, and the 'Directory' link will not appear on the main screen, but we presume that http://directory.google.com will still work, and an option to search the directory will appear under 'More Search Options'."
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| 3. Articles of the week |
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Paid inclusion under fire at search engine shindig "The debate over the fairness and relevancy of paid search spilled onto the stage at the Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies 2004 conference [...] It really is critical if you put information in the index that it is found in a relevant way [...] That method of paid submission was not meeting that requirement."
"Google will have a hard time fulfilling its mission to 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful,' as competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo rev their search engines."
"Some Web masters and small-business owners are complaining bitterly. They say Yahoo has a financial incentive to boost paying customers in search results, and they fear they'll be forced to pony up if they want to stay even with deep-pocketed competitors. [...] To participate, [the webmaster] would have to pay Yahoo $49 a year, plus 30 cents each time someone reached her Web site through the search portal. When she told a Yahoo executive speaking at a search engine conference in Manhattan, 'I just don't like it,' the audience responded with applause, according to attendees." "As Google moves toward its anticipated IPO, there are limits to the company's future success. According to a new Forrester Research, Inc. report, Google's dominance will be diluted as Microsoft and Yahoo! gain strength in the search industry. [...] Microsoft will emerge as the leader in integrating structured, desktop search, powered by its newest version of Windows, due out in late 2005. Yahoo! will win the portal battle, by extending its enhanced search throughout its network, creating a satisfying customer experience." |
| 4. Recommended resources |
| Are you dissatisfied with your rankings in Google, Yahoo and MSN Search?
If you use the right tools, your web site can have top rankings on all important search engines for your important search terms. IBP is a powerful web site promotion tool that helps you to optimize your web pages for top 10 rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN Search and all other major search engines. IBP uses the in-depth analysis of the current top 10 results on the search engine of your choice. You'll always get accurate results and advice that is based on the latest search engine algorithms. In addition, IBP submits your web site to all important search engines, Internet directories and special interest sites and it allows you to check your rankings so that you can verify the results. You can download a free IBP demo version here. ARELIS is a top-rated link popularity tool that can help you to get high quality incoming links to your web site. High quality links will help you to improve your search engine rankings on all important search engines. In addition, you'll benefit from targeted traffic from your link partners. You can download a free ARELIS demo version here. ARELIS and IBP are recommended by Internet marketing experts and they are used by thousands of customers all over the world. Download your copies now.
With ARELIS we are able to manage our entire website without a server-side database or programming knowledge. The best part for us is that ARELIS produces plain html pages that the search engine spiders LOVE. In just a short time we have increased our link popularity, search engine rankings and traffic to levels we never thought possible. Thanks for making this webmaster's life a lot easier!"
Just send us some words about your successes with IBP or ARELIS and you might get featured in this newsletter along with your web site address.
Find affordable web hosting companies, get a bonus when you sign up on a pay per click search engine and more on the active webmasters directory. |
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