Chapter 8 - SEARCH ENGINES (PART 1)

A TOPIC that could, and often has, filled complete books on its own, is the topic of Search Engines.

In case you’re just emerging from a twenty-year hermitage in a dark cave on a deserted island with no phones, no radio, television, newspaper… here’s a very brief definition of a search engine.

When you open up Explorer or Netscape or whatever browser you’re using, you are able to type a word or a phrase in the title bar.

A search engine then runs off to match your word or phrase with as many web sites as it can find. After a moment, your screen rebuilds to show about 10 sites that (hopefully) contain something relevant to your search criteria.

You click on the first one and your browser takes you there.

What does that tell you about search engines?

It tells you that the 999,990 sites that were NOT on the first page of the search results don’t stand a chance. It tells you that, if you rank number one on the word or phrase of your choice, you are quite likely going to get a lot of hits.

And, since hits=$$$, THAT’S why it’s important to try and get high search engine ranking.

We already covered the fact that search engines prefer sites with lots of links from other sites, but there are many other criteria too, and that’s what we need to look at now.

There are thousands of search engines on the Web. Most (if not all) of them exist because they charge for advertising space. Many now also sell their top positions for any particular search word (keyword).

In a couple of years, it is unlikely that any search engines will be free. They are all quickly heading towards the ‘pay-per-click’ system, and the top ranked sites are the ones that pay the most per click.

And here’s secret #1 about search engines…

There are, in fact, just EIGHT major search engines that hold the massive databases that determine position. If you can get a good ranking in one of the eight major engines, you will automatically rank well in over 200 others.

The criteria used by search engines to rank a site well or otherwise are secrets that are closely guarded by the search-engine owners.

Some people claim to have cracked the secret of the algorithms used by the search engines, but it is generally accepted that each engine uses its own logic.

The only way you’re going to do well in all of them is to create pages that are optimized for one particular engine, and we’ll be taking that idea a little further in a moment.

Meanwhile, more than 80 million people a day launch their surfing from a search engine.

That’s a LOT of people.

Now you understand why, if you have a top ten ranking, the traffic is simply going to flood into your site.

Unfortunately, getting a top ten ranking is like winning Olympic Gold... unless, of course, you own a site that specializes in some obscure topic. In which case it shouldn’t be too difficult to get to the top of the rankings.

For most of us, it’s a logistical nightmare.

There are two recognized methods to improve your ranking.

The first one, we’ve already discussed, which is to have links to your site from other sites. In other words, the more web sites that are linking to YOUR site, the more popular your site becomes in the search engines.

So far, we’ve looked closely at using Internet Success Spider to capture web site e-mail addresses then bulk-mailing the site owners to propose a link swap.

There are, though, other ways to have links back to your site. If you’re working your way through 10,000hits, you will possibly already be discovering them.

1. There are affiliates who place a link on their site so they can send prospective purchasers to your site.

2. There are FFA pages, which you’ll be learning about as you proceed through MPAM

3. Banner exchanges also will produce links from other sites. (Another part of the MPAM program).

4. Viral Marketing, which also features on MPAM

Any way you can imagine that will create a link to your site will help you to improve your search engine ranking.

If you’ve been to Neil Shearing’s site (Scam Free Zone) already, you’ll be aware that one of his products is the e-book "Yahoo Exposed" which shows how you can get a number one ranking for a particular keyword on Yahoo.

It demonstrates that there ARE known algorithms which can be used to ‘beat the search engine at its own game’.

Banner Exchanges, on the other hand, are one of the least effective ways of advertising. (How often do YOU click on a banner?). At least they produce another link to your site, and that’s always a good thing.

And here’s another silly little feature of search engines… The more popular the site is that your link is on, the more your own site will climb. They are nothing if not fickle, these search engines.

Moh. Ali Albar
I rewrite this article of E-book “TheTrafficJam™ Formula” by Graham Hamer