FAQ - Common Questions

What is a Search Engine?

How do you enter and search in a Search Engine?

What’s the difference between a Search Engine and
a Directory?

Which are the most popular search engines?

How can your web site be placed in a Search Engine?

Does a listing in Search Engines increase visitor traffic to your site?

Will high ranking in search results make a difference to my business?

Do I need professional assistance in promoting and pushing my site?

What’s the average time to wait before seeing progress in web site ranking?

Can I rely on companies that promise to send my site to thousands of search engines?

Can a search engine optimization company promise me ranking in the first positions?

What’s the secret in choosing the right keywords?

How can I track the web site promotion process for my site?

What is a Search Engine?
A search engine is a tool or program (supported by a web site) that allows people to look for relevant information on the Internet by typing specific search terms (such as ‘photo editing software’ for example). You can think of the Internet as a gigantic ‘Yellow Pages’ of web sites. Internet users type a search term in the search engine window and presses ‘Search’ or ‘Go’. The search engine then delivers pages of search results, which usually contains the search terms. Note that the most relevant results will always appear on the top few pages.

How do you enter and search in a Search Engine?
Every search engine has its own site where you can type your search term in the search window. The software then looks for relevant results in its database (index) and presents them as pages of search results.

Typical search engines are:
www.google.com
www.alltheweb.com
www.hotbot.com

What’s the difference between a Search Engine and a Directory?
A search engine undertakes a search among all the sites on the Web of which it is aware. A directory includes within its database only those web sites that an editor has visited and decided to accept. A search engine will present results of specific web pages, so that there can be more than one entry for a particular web site. A directory will present the general site and not its individual pages.

Generally, search engines will find a greater number of web sites than directories, because they are based on search robots called ‘crawlers’ or ‘spiders’. These robotic tools enter every web site that is presented on the Internet and categorize it according to the keywords and information that they find.

Compared to a search engine, a directory will generally contain higher quality sites that reside within its database and have to pass an editor’s review process before being accepted. A number of search engines also incorporate within them directories in order to offer the user higher quality search results.

Which are the most popular search engines?

The Internet contains a very large number of search engines and directories. Some search engines are Generalists while others are Specialists, focusing on particular areas such as music, photos, articles, engineering, medicine etc). 

The list below shows some of the leading search engines and directories on the Internet. Note that this list should not be construed as a recommendation for any particular web site.

How can your web site be placed in a Search Engine?
If your web site already has incoming links from other sites, it will probably already be included in the search engine’s database. Remember that the ‘crawlers’ or ‘spiders’ are busy checking out one site after another and mapping the Web, so in this way they will find your site.

If your site is not yet included in any search engine listing, you can submit it for inclusion. Some sites will register your site without charge while others may charge a fee from a few dollars to several hundred.

Does a listing in Search Engines increase visitor traffic to your site?
It can do, but not necessarily. The Web contains several million sites and several billion web site pages. Search engines are supposed to include in their databases as many sites as possible, but in practice they are unable to provide complete coverage.

Despite this, using a specific search term generally delivers a large number of relevant results. If your site is not found within the first results for the search term you specify (up to the first four pages or 50 results), then it has to be treated as ‘invisible’. In this case, it will attract virtually no visitor traffic.

Will high ranking in search results make a difference to my business?
Absolutely! If your site is not only included within the search engine index but also occupies one of the top positions, you will attract a large amount of visitor traffic. Your target audience is motivated and defined. If they find highly relevant sites at the beginning of their search, they are far more likely to visit sites and buy goods or services.

Do I need professional assistance in promoting and pushing my site?
In all probability, yes! The Internet has become a very competitive environment where special knowledge is required to increase a site’s visibility. If your web site is not highly ranked for the keywords that best describe your business sector, or you cannot find it on the Web, you can greatly improve your position by getting professional help.

Note that there are specific advertising tracks such as Pay-Per-Click and Banners that can be used. These tools, when managed by web marketing companies with know-how and experience, can greatly improve a web site’s visibility and stimulate visitor traffic.

Whether you have optimized your site for your principal keywords or not, it is recommended to hire a company that specializes in search engine optimization and web site marketing. Search engines change their algorithms (site recognition formula) all the time, which causes web site ranking to change. SEO companies track all these changes and are equipped to adjust client web sites accordingly.

What’s the average time to wait before seeing progress in web site ranking?
It’s hard to be precise, because the time can vary between weeks and months. It depends on the search engine and the algorithms (operating methods) that they use. Since these search engines change their algorithms from time to time, search results are likely to change.

We estimate that generic search results will reflect the changes to web marketing methods from the fourth month onwards. By contrast, if PPC methods are used, then web site traffic parameters can be measured almost immediately.

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Can I rely on companies that promise to send my site to thousands of search engines?
In NO way should you take them at their word! They can create more harm than good. You can see from the question about the most popular search engines that the effective sites are counted in the tens, not the thousands. What these companies do is send your site to Link Farms and Free-For-All (FFA) directories. Such places are only interested in collecting your e-mail address so that they can start sending you tons of junk mail. You have enough of that already.

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Can a search engine optimization company promise me ranking in the first positions?
No fair and honest search engine optimization company can make such promises, which can never be kept anyway. A professional web marketing company, using its tools and skills and working intensively over time, will certainly improve the performance of your web site for specific keywords (that’s their job). However the changing base of search engine algorithms and high competition surrounding the most popular keywords keeps ranking a very fluid business.

What’s the secret in choosing the right keywords?
In principle, the less competition there is around your chosen keywords, the more chance you have to see your site rise higher in search results. If you optimize and promote a highly niche business, you can become No.1 much faster than if you are operating in a very broad field.

You should undertake Keyword Research to find the most effective and focused keywords and not just be satisfied with the keywords with which you feel comfortable. They may not necessarily be the ones that bring you the most visitor traffic.