Newbie Search Engine?'s

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Newbie Search Engine?'s

How do i get search engines to see my website.

sincraft

2:47 am on Nov 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

I've read much about this, but for some reason I still seem to have failed at understanding certain things. I submitted my website at DMOZ and through google/yahoo.
I think my keywords etc are 'ok'. Why can't I find my website even if I type in the name of the company in the keywords?
I'm sure I have some drastically newbish problems, if someone could point some quickies out and possibly a link or two for newbs like myself, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

[edited by: Woz at 7:29 am (utc) on Nov. 20, 2004]
[edit reason] No Sigs please, see TOS#13 [/edit]

kodaks

4:25 pm on Nov 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

Welcome to Webmaster World!

Do you have all of your meta-tags properly setup? If you don't you should do it now.

Also, some search engines take more time than others to get sites indexed. Some are extremely quick, but many take weeks.

sincraft

8:29 am on Nov 22, 2004 (gmt 0)

Honestly, I am not sure if I do. I wish there was a way someone could look and tell me if I do and if I followed the proper procedures. I posted a link to my website but a mod edited it out for some reason :(

ARGH!

rj87uk

3:22 pm on Nov 22, 2004 (gmt 0)

Hi sincraft,

Please read the TOS again it says that we cant post URLs, or be specific in anyway (and i agree).

Sticky me your url and i will have a look, Search engines also look at how many other websites are linking to your own in order to rank you the more you have the better for your ranks. See Fourm 12.

kodaks

6:26 pm on Nov 22, 2004 (gmt 0)

sincraft-
You put meta-tags on every page that you want users to access from a search engine. The basic setup is:

<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="INSERT YOUR PAGE DESCRIPTION HERE">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="INSERT YOUR PAGE'S KEYWORDS HERE">
<META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" content="INSERT HOW MANY DAYS THE SEARCH ENGINE SHOULD REVISIT YOUR PAGE (LIKE 2)">

There are quite a few other meta tags, but the above are just the basics. Remember to always put your meta tags in the <head> section.

Some tips for your meta tags:

Most search engines have a limit to the length of your description and keywords. To be safe, make your descritpion less than 200 characters, and your keywords less than 1000 characters.[/li]

Use lowercase keywords to ensure compatibility with search engines[/li]

Don't repeat keywords very often. Most search engines will penalize you for repeatative keywords.[/li]

Put the most important keywords first[/li]

After you have succesfully setup your meta tags on all of your pages, you will now want to list your site in search engines. I have listed some major search engine submit pages, below. I am sure others can add a lot more:
Yahoo (and other popular search engines)
[submit.search.yahoo.com...]

Excite
[secure.ah-ha.com...]

Google
[google.com...]

Hotbot (Lycos)
[insite.lycos.com...]

MSN
[advertising.msn.com...]

I hope this helps, and best of luck to you!

bill

5:10 am on Nov 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

<META NAME="REVISIT-AFTER" content="INSERT HOW MANY DAYS THE SEARCH ENGINE SHOULD REVISIT YOUR PAGE (LIKE 2)">

I don't know of any search engine that follows this tag anymore. You can add it of course, but you won't see any benefit from it.

The description and keyword tags are a good idea.

Many people say that it's a better idea to let the search engines find you rather than to submit your pages. This is one of the reason's why WebmasterWorld's Search Engine Submission [webmasterworld.com] was depreciated at the beginning of 2003. Instead of submitting to the engines you can entice them to visit your site by obtaining links to your site from a few sites that are already in those search engine's indexes. Just keep in mind that whether you submit or not really won't speed up the indexing process.

Salsa

12:33 am on Nov 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

RE keywords and descriptions:

Use only keywords that appear in the body copy of the page. If the META keywords you want to use aren't in the body, rewrite the body so that they are!

Make your description an exact quote from someplace near the top of your body copy. If you can't find an appropriate quote in the body. Again, it's time to do some rewriting! I like to write a compelling topic sentence for the first or second paragraph of the body, and use that for the META description.

To me, how relevant META tags are to the search engines anymore isn't as important as how relevant your content is to your visitors. Worthwhile content: build it and they will come (back).