List of Search Engines

The companies whose logo's appear below are the list of search engines that used to compete in the market.

This list is now irrelevant because search is dominated by Google with Yahoo and Bing coming up the rear.

Getting a good organic Google ranking is what I try to do.

Getting good rankings in Yahoo or Bing is incidental because Google is what the vast majority of people use.

The information below remains as an historical curiosity.

Judging a search engine is easily done. Does it work?
That means "Does it find the webpage that you need when you put in the words that you think should lead you there?"
My patience is fairly short for search engines and if they don't find what I need then I try another one.

Problems include that they start to charge money for rankings (see Mamma at the bottom) thereby ruining objectivity and sometimes they just go bad. Altavista used to be good, now it doesn't seem to be able to find anything.

This means that using a particular search engines is not a lifetime habit so get used to trying different ones.

Using the search engines is supposed to be easy but it all depends on what words you input to search. It takes a bit of practice to think like a search engine. They rank sites firstly on the content (words) of the webpage. Then the title (words right at the top in the blue bar) then the meta tags (in the code of the website) the alt (alternative) tags "underneath" the pictures and also other factors such as "popularity" which is how many other sites link to a website.

It is hard sometimes to jig the website so that it will rank highly in the search engines because you have to use the words that you think people will use to search for the website, within the copy of the page. This leads to a less free flowing copy.

Anyway for better or for worse this is one of the ways that people find websites. Check "the biggest" for who really gets the traffic and ideally these are the main ones where you want your website to be listed.

Another interesting fact is that people use search engines only xx% of the time when researching new websites, others places people will find you are newspapers, magazines, TV, other advertising, Yellow pages, letterheads, business cards and all the other ways we can come across a website address.
P.S Don't forget word of mouth!

The BIGGEST

(and now probably the best too)
Check this page for stats on who gets the most traffic.
Most people use the big three now and the rest have fallen by the wayside.
Google Australia

Yahoo Yahoo Australia and NZ
Yahoo New Zealand now split to here.
MSN worldwide
MSN then called live.com and now called bing.com

(Used to be) The BEST

(check this page for another opinion)
Glossary: Meta Engine; Searches a selection of other search engines and directories.
Directory; Different from a search engine because it has categories

3 meta search engines, I don't use them much anymore.
Surf Wax Ixquick Fast also called ALL THE WEB
These search engine have lost in the marketplace and barely scratch the scale compared to the big 3 (or 4 counting AOL)
Lycos Hotbot

Direct Hit was bought by Ask Jeeves or Ask in 2000 or so.
Direct HIt

Lycos and HotBot are owned by the same folk but supposed to be different and unique (different league to the top three) Directhit partners with them but is also separate (it is owned by AskJeeves) Use Lycos if you have to.
Netscape (uses Google I think) Dmoz or Open Directory
Netscape which makes the formerly most popular browser (Netscape Navigator) gives you a choice of engines when you go there (including Google) and also owns DMOZ (which is a directory not a search engine and has an excellent reputation) which in turn gets searched by other search engines such as Lycos and AOL (confused yet?)
Altavista
AltaVista used to be the best and then it started to charge money to be listed and is now pretty hopeless but still gets a trickle of search traffic.

Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves or Ask.com is pretty cool and on the rise. Very USA-centric and a bit slow sometimes.

Really you shouldn't have to "submit" your page to search engines because little robots go forth every day and find your page from other pages links to it, and will gladly index it as soon as they find it.
.

So, anyway if you're a client , CHECK THEM ALL OUT!, plug in the words you want to find your company and see if you come up! If you dont then contact me and I will help you with some SEO

The Rest

Spire Project
Spire is cool but I don't use it regularly

Mamma
Mamma is definitely on the decline now that it charges to list. It's results have fallen off too. A previous meta engine favourite of mine.

Web crawler
Web crawler is trying to be a good meta engine, maybe one to watch.
About
About is trying to corner the search market in "how to" do things, interesting....

Very average meta engine
Dogpile
Dogpile is another surviving meta engine.

Contact Hardweb - making websites work!


www.hardweb.com.au

07 5526 2939
0401 352 269

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Cartoon about search engines by suck.com























07 5526 2939
0401 352 269