 | Chris Owen
is President and founder of Hubris Communications. Until the opening of Hubris' Wichita office, Mr. Owen was the sole network technician and systems administrator of the company. Hubris Communications is a provider of premium Dial-Up, ADSL, SDSL, Wireless, and dedicated Internet Services. Founded in Garden City, Kansas and doing business since July 1995, Hubris Communications, Inc. serves over 3,200 customers in south central and southwestern Kansas. Chris can be reach at (316) 858-3000 or owenc@hubris.net |
Computers & Software
2003-03-01 13:26:00
Positioning a web site
ANSWER: Controlling how your site is positioned in the various search engines and directories is definitely a cause of concern for all web site owners.The first thing to realize when looking at this particular problem is that there is a difference between a "search engine" and a "directory" site. google.com for instance is a search engine. It obtains its information by going out into the world and examining all the sites it can find. Since the search engine is coming to your site, how it ranks you is going to be decided by information it finds on your site (and on other sites). The process is usually completely automated and humans are not involved. In such a model all pages of your site are usually indexed by the search engine. yahoo.com on the other hand is a directory site. Rather than come to you yahoo.com requires that you submit your material to their site.You will go to their site and enter the way you want the site to be listed. Although much of this process is automated, human interaction to confirm and verify the information is often required.In this model usually only the main page of your web site is listed in the directory.With a web directory like yahoo.com there is usually little you can do directly to manipulate your listing. The only way to really improve your position is to pay the directory for a "sponsored" or priority listing. yahoo.com does sell these type of listings and purchasing one will increase position significantly. With a search engine like google.com there are lots of things you can do to increase your position. For google.com you can find these listed at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ These can include such features as META tags and keywords. However, it is very important to read their rules in regard to the use of these features. Many of the "search engine positioning" services you will see advertised are scams that will do things that can actually get you banned from search engines. If search sites find you trying to artificially manipulate their search results they may just remove your site completely.Few people know that one of the most imporant things about how google.com lists your site in the results is how many other sites on the web link to yours. So one of the best ways to increase your score at google.com is to make sure that your site is linked as many other places as possible (which obviously is a good thing in itself).While they don't sell positioning in their search listings, google.com does sell "sponsored" links that come up next to their search listings. These listings are usually sold on a "click through" basis so you only pay for those listings that actually result in someone visiting your web site. At only a few pennies per click through, these are one of the best values on the net.
