The Major Search Engines

Intro: Most Internet traffic flows through a small number of search engines. A review of the worlds most popular search engines and directories.

You may have received junk mail along the lines of: "submit your site to over 100,000 search engines!! Only $9.99!! Order now!!"

Sounds too good to be true? It is. These "services" are misleading and will do nothing to improve your site traffic.

Why? Firstly, you need to optimise your site prior to submission - that is, ensure you site contains the right elements in order to get a favourable treatment from search engines.

Secondly, the majority of search engine traffic comes from only twelve search engines/directories. The remaining search engines attract less than .001% of search engine traffic between them.

Most of the majors now charge additional fees for listings and disregard automatic submission programs. In this article, I'll look at the search engines and directories that really matter.

Yahoo is the worlds most well known web property and it is estimated that 45% of the worlds search traffic comes from Yahoo. Yahoo is a Directory, that is, it uses human editors to add, review and categorise web sites. Yahoo charges US$299 for "considering" commercial site listings. Yahoo also derives secondary search results from Google.

Google Our favourite. Google is the worlds' fastest growing search engine and it's easy to see why - Google concentrates exclusively on search services and has an uncanny knack of consistently returning relevant results. Google is a spider based search engine and offers free submit.

MSN: Microsoft's MSN service is not a search engine in its own right. It derives results from Looksmart and Inktomi. Both Looksmart and Inktomi charge for listings. Good MSN rankings are important for sites with a New Zealand audience as Xtra-Msn is New Zealands most used "local" search engine.

AOL: Like MSN, AOL derives results from Looksmart and Inktomi. Extensively used by AOL users (naturally) as it forms part of the AOL home page.

Inktomi:Inktomi is another crawler based engine that feeds results to other search services, most notably HotBot. Inktomi charge listing fees, however a free submit option is still available.

Looksmart: Looksmart, like Yahoo, is a human edited directory. It's importance lies in the fact that it supplies search results to other search engines, the most notable being MSN and AOL. Looksmart charge listing fees up to US$299.

AltaVista: A shadow of it's former self, AltaVista was replaced by Google as discerning search engine of choice. Erratic search results and an outdated index have seen AltaVista plummet in the popularity stakes. AV charges for listings, however a free option is still available. This used to be my personal favorite.

ODP: Also known as DMOZ. The Open Directory Project is a search directory staffed by volunteer editors. The ODP is important as it supplies secondary results to many other search engines.

Overture: Formerly known as Goto, Overture is a pay-per-click search engine. That is, you bid for the highest positions and pay per visitor delivered. Can be a useful strategy for those focusing on a US audience. Overture provides results to other search engines/directories including Yahoo, AOL and Lycos.

Lycos: Very popular in Europe, Lycos is a crawler based search engine. Lycos has recently undergone major "renovations" and is looking to regain it's place amongst the worlds top search engines. Also takes results from Fast/AllTheWeb

Fast/All the Web: Has recently undergone major renovations and is steadily gaining in popularity. FAST plans to charge for listing although listing is currently free.

Netscape: Results served from the ODP, Google and Overture. Important as it is the default search engine for the Netscape browser.

Summary

The search engine landscape, like the web itself, evolves rapidly. Some engines rise in popularity while others disappear altogether. What is important is to get a good spread of keywords ranking well across all major search engines and directories. This will increase the likelihood of your site being found.