Hippotek Internet Website Search Secrets Page

Search Secrets

Report and recommendations on procedures for the Registration of Websites with major search engines and directories.
Copyright Hippotek Internet 1999

This report is designed to be of use to our existing clients and prospects whether they engage Hippotek to carry out this important work for them or whether they adopt a DIY approach.

SEARCH ENGINES & DIRECTORIES
Alta Vista - Euro Ferret - Excite - EYP - HotBot - Infoseek UK - Infoseek - Lycos - Scoot - UK Directory - UKIndex - WebCrawler - Yahoo UK & Ireland - Yahoo

Of these search tools, the five most important are Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos and Yahoo (Yahoo is a directory and not a search engine. All entries are manually assessed before careful selection and entry).

The reason that these five are the most important is that they are recommended in countless Websites and are "top listed" in the software supplied by almost all ISP's, which is where many new users will start exploring and forming their personal "search habits". They therefore account for the lion's share of searching traffic.

There are of course hundreds, if not thousands of other search engines, some very specialised, some very good, others not at all useful. Many of these smaller Search Engines feed off of the major five to compile their listings. Hippotek consider that it is essential to concentrate on getting good accurate registrations with the top five search engines. These are the most difficult to penetrate and may also take the longest to include a submission in their site, sometimes many months due to a backlog of entries. However, accurate and sustained inclusion in these major engines will guarantee increased volumes of traffic to a Website greatly enhancing the opportunity of meeting the aims of that site.

It must be remembered that many thousands of submissions are made to these Search Engines every single day and therefore allowances should be made for this during the planning stage of a project. The processing of this volume of data is a phenomenal task and even with the processing power available to them, it still takes time to accurately develop, what are, databases of world-wide information. It is important to occasionally stop and think about the scale!

The revenue that these search facilities can generate is directly proportional to the volume of searches they achieve. The volume of searches that they achieve is directly proportional to the quality of information provided within their site. They will not now include inferior, amateur, illegal, slow, uninteresting, misleading boring or unreliable Websites. In order to be included in these prestigious search engines, the Website must pass their strict entry criteria as follows:

DESIGN CRITERIA

Information Appeal -The site must be of interest to a wide audience. (analysis of vocabulary and images) ·
Information Value -The information must be of sufficient depth to be useful to browsers. (word count analysis) ·
HTML Validity -The site must be well written with minimal errors in the html code (html validity automated analysis with pre-set tolerances)
Browsers -The site must be designed to be compatible with most popular browsers (automated analysis with pre-set tolerances) ·
Linkages -The links within the site must be valid (automated analysis with pre-set tolerances) ·
Load Times -The site must be deigned so that pages load within reasonable times. (automated analysis with pre-set tolerances) ·
Spelling -The site must be legible with good spelling (automated analysis with pre-set tolerances)

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
The following points will not necessarily prevent a site from being entered onto a search engine but will significantly effect the performance of that site within the search environment. ·

Findability - Title, Description and Keywords must be configured correctly within the html coding of the site. The keywords within the head code must be configured carefully and in order of importance ·
Placement - Good placement within the search results depends largely on the above but additionally on the accuracy of the information submitted to the individual search engine. Each engine requires slightly different configuration of TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS, for instance some will allow 80 chars. of keywords whilst others will accept 8000 chars. ·
Identification - It is of very great importance that the description that is displayed in the search results (when the site is found) is well constructed and easily understandable. Some engines generate this automatically but it is important to submit this information accurately where possible. ·
Linkages -The site will be less attractive to the search engines if there are few or no links within the site. Most search engines actively encourage the addition of linkages to and from as many other sites as possible in order to encourage networking. Links to their own sites are a good idea. Links from many other sites greatly enhance the performance of the site. ·
Pornography - The site must not contain adult/illegal material (word and image title analysis sex/xxx etc) It must be borne in mind that with the exception of Yahoo, this entry criteria is tested automatically with spider software that analyses the site.

SUBMISSION
When the site meets as many of the design and performance criteria as possible it must then be submitted to the search engines and directories for inclusion.

Each of the search engines have slightly different rules which must be stringently adhered to in order to give the site the best chance of being accepted.

Automated submission software packages, of which there are dozens or even hundreds to chose from, require careful research. The "submit your site to 800search engines completely free of charge" offers, are usually devices to capture your email and contact details. The result is that you will then be offered many services over the Internet as your email address is spuriously passed around the globe. Some of these services, you will want, others, you (or your partner) may not. Not all will be strictly legal!.

Other Submission packages appear to be above board and very good value for money. Two of the best known are "Submit-it! Announcement Service by Link Exchange" and "Register-it! By Web Site Garage". However the results achieved with these tools are very questionable. Many of the search engines simply block all automated submissions and others may block individual company's submissions for political reasons. Submit-it! Is owned by Microsoft - need I say more!

RECOMMENDATIONS
Hippotek recommend a strategy of bespoke submission and analysis. It is not possible to take shortcuts with this process and achieve good results. The only way to gain access to the "high places" on the Search Engines is to carry out a sustained campaign which must include: Analysis, Optimisation, Submission, Performance Tracking and Re-Submission. Once we have completed this operation and are achieving good results it is then time to start all over again. In order to run an effective Website this must be a continuous process. Having identified the difficulties in this area at an early stage Hippotek have been quietly developing strategies to overcome the problems for their clients. We therefore recommend that our clients consider the following measures.

HIPPOTEK SUBMISSION AND ANALYSIS PACKAGE.
Hippotek have developed a package of measures to offer to clients. These will include the following:

1. Analysis of an existing Website - Testing all criteria that effect search engine acceptance and performance.
2. Detailed report on design, status and performance including Browser Compatibility, Link Validity, Load Time, Submission Readiness, Spelling, and Popularity.
3. Recommendations as to improvements and optimisation.
4. Bespoke submission - using a carefully balanced combination of submission software and manual submission techniques to guarantee best results.
5. Timely and regular evaluation of submission acceptance across all major engines and a cross section of others.
6. Monthly ongoing evaluation, analysis and re-submission where necessary
7. Provision of detailed Monthly reports

Estimated initial cost around £475
Estimated on-going maintenance cost around £75 per month.
Reporting and analysis software sample reports available on request.

NB
All of the Websites that Hippotek have designed and developed will meet the strict technical submission criteria demanded by all search tools.
In addition Hippotek will have carried out initial submission to a selection of top engines.

For further information contact Hippotek Internet info@hippotek.co.uk