Strengths and Weaknesses of Search Engines?

[scot123]

Hi all,

1.
I would like to know relative strengths and weaknesses of following Search Engines?

www.google.com
www.aol.com
www.altavista.com
www.msn.com
www.lycos.com
www.hotbot.com
www.alltheweb.com
www.yahoo.com
www.overture.com
www.mamma.com

2.
How would I define spam with particular reference to search engines?

Any help greatly appreciated.

regards,
Scot

[troels nybo nielsen]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, Scot

> How would I define spam with particular reference to search engines?

Hmm.. until someone suggests something better: Putting something on a page that does not help your human visitors but is intended to boost that page in the search engines.

[millie]

For me the order of importance for traffic is pretty consistent across all sites:

Google
Yahoo (search, primarily Google results)
MSN
[then big drop to ...]
AOL
Altavista
Lycos / Alltheweb / Hotbot - v minor referrers

Alltheweb - fantastic webmaster tools

I don't do PPC with Overture so can't comment on this. Certainly, their reach is good though.