> >Lycos
> >Alta Vista
> >Hotbot
> >Inktomi
> >Excite (bought Magellan, AOL Netfind is an Excite front end)
> >Webcrawler (owned by Excite, operated independently)
> >Infoseek (Search.com is a front end for Infoseek)
> >Northern Light
> >Snap
>
> I'm using the term "search engine" in the generic sense - where do people
> go to find sites:
> Yahoo
> DogPile
> The Mining Co.
When I started building the databases for my Search Engine Keywords
and Query Statistics pages, I polled the top engines for page counts. (I
still do that on occasion.)
AltaVista has far higher holdings in most of the queries that I have
tested. I may find some 25 URL's in a category at Yahoo, and 2,500 or
even 25,000 at AltaVista. I've seen it!
In the end, rather than confuse the issues, I went with the AltaVista
numbers for everything. I've been thinking of listing the numbers of
pages indexed for all the search engines on the queries; but most people
are not interested in page numbers. Are you? Do you want to know the
size of their holdings?
What many of the semi-pro web-mashers seem to be interested in, is
what general keywords are hot, so they can put them into their meta tags,
whether they are relevant or not. That changes from hour to hour, but
things average out, and I publish the reports once a week as an
attraction. The top 100 keywords and queries are posted at
http://www.mall-net.com/se_report/ . Another good site is
http://www.SearchEngineWatch.com/ .
I've even turned up a number of pages that seemed to have "borrowed"
one of those top 100 keyword pages from my site, had it indexed on their
site, then substituted their own content after the search engines
departed. The residuals, including actual page count numbers, show up in
the search engines for those pages. As long as the actual copyrighted
page does not, I don't complain. BUT... I think they should be Shot, as
in most cases, this is spamming the users, and getting a web page takes a
LOT longer than looking at a spam-o-gram.
Hot general keywords really are not very useful; one really needs to
see what keywords and phrases are being used to search for specific
content, the content you are trying to promote on your pages. This is why
some sites, like Yahoo and The Mining Co, have people go out and actually
look at web pages to judge relevancy, before including them in their
indexes. The Mining Co seems to summarize some of the pages, allowing
people a broader overview and access to details where they wish.
What surprises me however, is that the concept of checking to see
what keywords are actually used by people -- see what words PEOPLE
consider relevant to a given topic that a page is about -- does not seem
to be catching on except among a few rather dedicated webmasters who
measure money their pages and sites generate, rather than simple hit
counts. It is as if most semi-pros would measure the success of a store
the way they measure the success of a museum -- how many people walk
through the door, not how many people partake of the merchandise. The real
pro's work the actual phrases people use in their searches, into their
topics into the descriptions, headers, and the text itself, not just in
the keyword meta tag. And they make sure it is relevant.
My conclusion is that most page creators seem to think of pages as
isolated entities, rather than stepping stones on a path. As
what's his name said earlier, (George?) they would rather spend a lot of
money on a quarterly report that gets tossed by disinterested people, than
a little on a web site that thousands of highly interested people actually
seek out. (I think that is in part because they know ahead of time how
many they will send out, vs speculating how many hits they will get.
Hint, they all get thrown away, either basketically, or webmatically.)
Measure the success of a page by how many entries to your site it
generates, minus the number of exits from your site. That means a
successful page entices a person to walk a little while on your
information pathway, to rest a while upon your pages, before getting back
on the highway. Most of my successful pages have a ten to thirty minute
reading time. The real winners on my site end up being printed out, and
taken to the doctor with lots of marginal notes and questions.
As one lady told me some years ago, "never mind the information
super highway, just get me a concession at one of the rest stops."
Do people pause at your site to read the text? Or do they see it as
an irrelevant hit, and drive away? How long do they pause at your site?
Put yourself in the mind of your customers, then see how REAL
customers find your site, mine your logs for which search engines bring in
the most LONGER term visitors, and what keywords they use.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
----------------------- IMAGINEERING --------------------------
----------------- Every mouse click, a Vote -------------------
---------- Do they vote For, or Against your pages? -----------
----- What people want: http://www.mall-net.com/se_report/ ----
---------------------------------------------------------------
--- Have you analyzed your viewer's footprints in the logs? ---
--- Webmaster's Resources: http://www.mall-net.com/webcons/ ---
--- Web Imagineering -- Architecture to Programming CGI-BIN ---
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