The Major Search Engines And Directories
Ok folks, these are the most important search engines and directories, at least from a
marketer's standpoint. Submit your URL to each of these at least once. If you're serious
and/or have the time, you really should re-submit your URL to all of them every few weeks.
Once you submit your URL, you'll want to check back to see if and where your page is
listed. The column on the right is my best estimate of how long it takes for a page to go
from being submitted to appearing in the catalog. Some process all of the submissions by
hand and take a month or longer!
Some search engines will instantly spider a web page, while others add it to a list and
visit later. Some will instantly spider the single page that you submit and return later
for the rest of the site. Either way, once your page is indexed, it still has to be added
to the catalog so be patient!
Checking Your URL
Some search engines make it easy to confirm that your URL is in their catalog. With
others, it can be more difficult. Here are the best ways to find your web pages in most of
the major search engines and directories. If you're in a hurry, try PositionAgent although
it doesn't always work.
PositionAgent
Tired of checking with each search engine to see how you rank under different keywords?
PositionAgent sends your keyword queries out to 10 major search engines, then scans up to
20 pages of results for your URL and reports your position for free.
Here are some other free services you can used to check your URL's position in the major
search engines.
RankThis! is a free online tool to
help you determine your "ranking" on different keyword sets in 11 of the major
search engines. Their spider tells you not only if your site is in the top 200 results for
those keywords, but also lists the sites that are in the top 10 on that search (a little
competitive research never hurt, eh?) Just in case your site isn't in the top 200, they
have included a guide to improving your rankings and a discussion group to post questions
and share advice.
Search Engine Ranking Tools
suggests ways to improve search engine results with advice, hints, tips, and clues to
improve your search engine rankings relative to existing leaders. After all, that is your
real objective.
Note: Since your site's result rankings change week-to-week due to
competition, maintaining top rankings requires constant monitoring and rework. You can
easily do this with WebPosition
Analyzer software. WebPosition makes it easy to monitor your search positions
& to improve your rankings up to first place. It reports your search positions and
search rankings on all the major internet search engines. This is not a free software but
you can download the FREE
Trial Version.
Alta Vista
Alta Vista makes checking easy. Simply enter your URL in the keyword box, such as:
- url:uc3.com/members/xxxxxx/ or... whatever your URL is
Note that the URL entered after url: doesn't include the www prefix. You can add this,
but if Alta Vista has indexed your site without them, the pages won't appear. You're
covered both ways by leaving off the prefix off. Don't worry about the http:// prefix,
either.
Excite
There's no easy way to do a URL check in Excite. The best method is to enter the
URL. For example:
http://uc3.com/members/xxxxxx/ or...
whatever your URL is
Generally, your page should come near the top, if it is in the catalog. Using a www
preface can make a difference, so be sure to try both ways.
HotBot
There are different ways to check for your URL in HotBot, each with works to
varying degrees of success. One way is:
- Enter your URL in the search box
- Change the default from "all of the words" to "links to this URL"
- Open the Location options if you wish to narrow your search to a particular domain, such
as your own. That will help reduce the clutter from other sites.
Note: HotBot's instructions say that the "links to this URL" option should
read as "the URL," so they have a glitch. This is how it appears on the Active X
version of the page, although it also searches only for links.
You can also try doing a search for your URL as a phrase, and again narrow the location
to your domain. In general, you'll need to experiment with different methods.
Infoseek
Infoseek is another engine that makes finding your URL easy. From the Infoseek home
page, click on the "Ultraseek" link on the left-hand side of the page. From
here, click on any of the links, such as "URL Search," under the Ultraseek logo
on the left-side of the page. This will take you to the "Special Searches page,
http://www.infoseek.com/Forms?&sv=IS&lk=noframes&pg=special.html
Enter your URL in the URL Search box with out the http://www. Just enter the root
domain, followed by the exact page address. For example:
uc3.com/members/xxxxxx/ or... whatever your URL is
Lycos
Lycos has a check URL page at:
http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html
Unfortunately, viewing your actual listing can be a bit of work. Entering the URL may
bring many pages and no guarantee that yours is included. Also, because Lycos makes
abstracts of web pages, it may not have stored unique words that can help you locate your
page.
WebCrawler
WebCrawler has a URL status check page at:
http://www.webcrawler.com/WebCrawler/Status.html
If your page is in the current index, WebCrawler will respond with something like:
http://uc3.com/members/xxxxxx/ was last visited by Spidey, our
Web spider, on Oct. 04 1996 at 03:40 Pacific Standard Time
You may get also get a message like this:
The URL http://uc3.com/members/xxxxxx/ has not yet been visited by Spidey, our Web
spider, but it is in our database.
That means that your page has been visited but hasn't been added to the current
catalog. Finally, you might also get a message that WebCrawler has never visited your
page. If so, submit!
As with Lycos, finding your actual listing can be tricky. Entering the URL
may turn up anything but your site. Again, try searching for unique words.
A Webmaster's Guide
To Search Engines will give you detailed information on how search engines
find and rank web pages, with an emphasis on what webmasters can do to improve how search
engines list their web sites. If you are looking for details this site is the place to go.
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