Search Engines Dissected

Almost everything is within our reach through the vast information found in the internet. And the main access to this virtually limitless information is through a Search Engine. Now what do we know about Search Engines? To start with, Search Engines are websites or software designed to provide information by gathering data on the Internet. They are the virtual encyclopaedias, directories, indexes, and such all rolled into one. By the definition itself, it is a very useful tool for searchers and webmasters alike. For the searchers, they depend on these search engines to give them accurate results of their searches. The webmasters, on the other hand, they depend on this to route traffic to their sites, which potentially increases their possibility in generating business either by direct selling or through other website advertising on their sites, which are now probably the most inexpensive and effective marketing mediums.

The web search tools or services originally began with two kinds; these were the Directories and Engines. The Directories or Search Directories were human powered, which meant that the websites included in the directory’s database were handpicked and classified according to the search by humans and is therefore, dependent on humans for its entries or listings. The Engines or Search Engines, on the other hand, are robots or crawlers; they read or “crawl” or “spider” through the web for information and collect the information and deposit it in a large database. These crawlers or spiders regularly return to the site to look for changes, and they update the database on these changes.

Today most of the web search engines are Hybrid Engines, which mean they are a mix of both kind, they both have human-powered listings as well as crawler-based results.

Now we also have Metasearch engines; are search engines searching through the database of other various search engines and search directories simultaneously, trying to select from all of them the most relevant results or hits, instead of searching the individual websites.

Another is also what we call Specialized Search Engine, which only focuses on one type of topic of information, whether in search for files, images, music, video, online references, business, shopping, news, blogs, and more.

There is also a Selection-based Search Engine, in which the query is done through the mouse instead of the traditional launching of a browser and going through a search engine, typing or pasting the query, viewing the results, and clicking the hyperlink that suits the searcher.

And we also have Desktop Search Engines or Search Tools where the searcher uses the search engine to search his own computer for his own files or file content rather than searching the internet.

Below are some of the well known search engines of today:
Yahoo: www.yahoo.com
- It was dubbed as the mother of the search directories and was originally a Search Directory that was mainly powered by humans, now it has evolved to a Hybrid Engine as most search engines usually are.
Google: www.google.com
- Is a very popular crawler-based search engine which was voted several times as the Most Outstanding Search Engine; a top choice for searchers and masters alike; a recommended first stop if not one-stop shop in your web hunts.
Dogpile: www.dogpile.com
- A metasearch engine that searches through the database of Google, Yahoo, bing (www.bing.com), and Ask (www.ask.com)
eBay!: www.ebay.com
- A popular specialized search engine which specializes in auctions: selling, and bidding for products
YouTube: www.youtube.com
- Another popular specialized search engine concentrating on TV and video.
Microsoft Word Smart Tag
- A selection-based search engine found in the later versions of Microsoft Word; the application recognizes certain types of information in the document such as dates, names, and places and converts it into a hyperlink enabling the user to click on the information which either prompts a browser to be launched or shows a selection of possible actions.
Windows Desktop Search
- A desktop search engine that is already built-in or part of Windows XP and Server 2003 and is named as Windows Search in Windows Vista, which searches the files on the searchers on computer.

The usage of the search engine ultimately depends on the searcher’s preference which is mainly determined through the accuracy of the hits of the searches in which the webmaster strongly depends on for his business traffic.

Some SEO Basics to Attain Success

Search engine optimization is an activity that will help your Web site rank higher on search engines, primarily to help your potential customers find you.  For the past few years, search engine optimization or SEO has come under fire as being ineffective and therefore a waste of your marketing money.

Part of this image is the emergence of black hat techniques and the companies that employ them.  In an effort to fool search engines, these companies try to, illegally manipulate how a search engine spider might see your Web site and therefore rank them higher.  These black hat techniques are often temporary, and always very dangerous.  Temporary in the sense that when you stop paying the company for your high ranks, they pull out their tricks from under your site so that it falls down in ranking, sometimes settling at a position that is much lower than when you started.  Dangerous, because it can get your site banned from search engines.

Fortunately, these deceitful techniques are always found out and search engines like Yahoo!, Google and Bing have constantly updated their search algorithms to defeat these techniques.  There are still companies that use black hat techniques but their client lists have since drastically dwindled.

On the other hand, white hat techniques like on-page SEO optimization, off-page SEO optimization, link building and creating better and SEO-friendly content are the surviving techniques, and which have been proven to be safe and effective.  Companies that use them have so far been successful in their campaigns.

There have been criticisms that SEO really does not do anything for your site.  You can be number one for keywords that nobody else wants or nobody else uses.  The critics say that for the really important keywords that would drive customers to your site, SEO cannot help you.

However, take a look at recent statistics to judge for yourself and see whether SEO works or not:

* According to Forbes’ Ad Effectiveness Survey, 48% of senior marketers at different companies think that SEO is the most effective online marketing tactic that generated conversions; and

* SEMPO State of Search Marketing Survey found that SEO was the second highest way to generate returns on your investment.

What does this mean?  It is an indicator that, done right, SEO can be your most effective ally when marketing online.  SEO even exceeds paid placements and e-mail marketing in perceived effectiveness.  However, this is not to say that if you are a company looking forward to cash in on online commerce, you should just focus on SEO.  There are a lot of companies that made bad decisions and that killed their SEO efforts right from the start.

How do you succeed in SEO?  You have to:

1. Plan and research extensively.  You just cannot go to the Internet and decide to optimize your Web pages without careful planning.  What keywords would you target, who is your target market, and how are you going to go about it?  Like any marketing strategy, SEO should be well thought over and carefully planned, so that implementing it would take less time and have a better chance of success.

2. Educate yourself.  Not all SEO tactics are equal or appropriate for your products.  You should know what tactics would work best for you.  What is more important is that you have to keep yourself updated with what is happening in SEO.  Continuing education is very important because search engines often change their algorithm to improve their own search results.  Search engines also come up with new services that you could tap.  For example, Google started off merely as a search engine where you input your keywords.  Over time, they have introduced various refinements like Google Local that is geared for local businesses and just recently, they have launched a search service that caters exclusively to movies.

3. Test, evaluate and monitor.  It is not enough that you optimize your site once and forget about it.  As indicated, search engines change the way they index your pages.  What may have worked for you now may not work next year, and so you have to fine tune your SEO according to these changes.  Do not get discouraged if you do not immediately get the results you want, as this only means that you need to change some of the things you did for your site.  SEO is largely a check-and-balance exercise, and you have to find what works for you and why it works for you.