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Registering your Web Site with Various Search Engines
Think of the World Wide Web as a library of books. Each web page is a book without a title page and no card catalog exists for finding anything. Sounds like a real challenge. Every now and then, one runs into a listing of sites dealing with a specific topic. These motherloads, using a mining term, save time in research as one surfs the web.
Some search engines are used to gather large amounts of information from web sites. The three major types of search engines are:
- General search engines -- A general search engine has its own databases composed of enteries where individuals have added their own Internet pages to a database -- "Add an URL" OR some of the larger general search engine companies use what are call "Worms" or "spiders" to go out and seach the Internet for new URLs and web sites. The worms and spiders read all the pages and then build indexes from the various web sites. These indexes will range from 10 % to 50% of a web sites written materials. Some worms and spiders will also index URLs (so one can see all the sites that list their web URLs) and all graphics that are used on their pages. General search engines must create their own databases and store the indexes for interneters to use. This costs money and forces the owners of general search engines to sell advertizing. Out of the thousands of general search engines, only about fifty have extremely large data bases. Some have specialized data bases, i.e., law, science, religion, etc. The rest are trying to build a presence on the web with determination, but no money. The databases are sorted by importance before being displayed for your benefit. You will need to know how each search engine computes that importance.
- Meta search engines -- A Meta search engines does not have its own database. Instead it uses databases of other search engines. The meta search engine will search a number of databases, sort the results by importance and then display the result of about the best 50 sites. Meta search engines are excellent for searching obscure topics where some databases might include that topic. The big disadvantage is that meta search engines use a common searching technique that does not adequately work the same as general search engines on their databases. THUS, while the meta search engines searches a particular database, it gets different results than the general search engine does on its own database.
- Directories -- Directories start from a home page and subdivides all knowledge into smaller areas of knowledge. For example, starting with culture and society, one choice would be religions, which would include all the religions in the world and possibly some new ones. From religion, one could chose Christianity, and from Christianity, protestantism, and from protestantism, various church organizations and independant churches with similar names. Eventually one can arrive at a genre of information. The advantage is that as one narrows down the topic, one eventually arrives at a particularly large quantiy of excellent information dealing with a common subject, not just a keyword. The disadvantage is one must go through a large number of pages before getting to the desired information and limited search capabilities to search a smaller database.
Therefore, to a have a presence on the web and be included in the various databases, one needs to add their various URLs to the databases. Thousands of databases exist, but about fifty handle over 70% of all searchs of the Internet. A small number are listed below and show the principles to listing a Web site.
Following the directions. One should double check the URL for accuracy and case-sensibility, know the subject matter and purpose of your web site, and have the web page's title for included when asked. Most sites are slightly different from each other in their requirements.
Remember, One can not add to a meta search engine, because they do not have databases.
Read and following the directions in adding your URL to the following examples:
AltaVista --Adding Pages or URLs to the Index
http://altavista.digital.com/av/content/addurl.htm
Excite -- Add an URL
http://www.excite.com/Info/add_url.html
WebCrawler Add URL
http://webcrawler.com/Help/GetListed/AddURLS.html
Magellan -- Add a Site
http://www.mckinley.com/magellan/Info/addsite.html
Yahoo -- How to Suggest Your Site
http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/include.html
or Yahoo -- How to Suggest Your Site
http://www.yahoo.com/info/suggest.html
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