Major Search Engines and Directories

    In Chapter 5: Major Search Engines & Directories provides you with essential info on today’s most popular and most powerful search engines in the world. Get a little history on each company and learn some stats that determine the success of these search engines in the World Wide Web. Also, find out the significance of directories, and how they can also be used to make your site findable by the billions of internet users on the planet.

  • Major Search Engines and Directories
    • Search Engines and Directories
    • Search Engine Guidelines
    • Search Engines
      • Google
      • Yahoo
      • MSN
    • Directories

       

      Yahoo Directory, Open Directory (DMOZ), Google Directory, Lists of Other Directories

    • Forums

SEO for MSN


    MSN stands for Microsoft Network, which was under the giant company Microsoft, as established by Bill Gates. The internet service offshoot from Microsoft began in 1995, and since then has grown in scope by integrating services such as Messenger and Hotmail.

    As of the present, MSN enjoys the privilege of being in the top 5 most visited websites in the world. Based on internet search engine market shares, MSN possesses about 10% of the market share in the United States, ranking it as the third most popular search engine in the country.

    The web hosting for MSN falls under the Live Search Engine. SEO tools and services are also offered in this division of MSN.

    MSN is also strict in the type of content and site elements that web masters present for their spider, which is called the MSNBot. Cloaking, a practice which covers doorway pages and gateway pages, is also not allowed for sites that want to be listed on MSN.

    Going above the recommended keyword density per page is a method that can be penalized by MSN. No hidden links or hidden text should be placed on web pages, and only content visible to the web visitor should be used.

    In the same way, it is unethical to have a site listed in link farms, as this is an unhealthy method of getting traffic towards a site. Furthermore, the MSNBot already knows how to recognize such sites, and will not index them at all.

    From this link, you can gather additional info on the rules and regulations for SEO as imposed by MSN for website owners and managers. http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?FORM=WMDD

Lists of Other Search Engines

Here are some search engines that are worth noting:

Baidu – This is a China-based search engine that ranks within the top 3 when it comes to worldwide search engine market shares.
NHN.com – The Japan-based search engine also ranks within the top 10 of popular and widely used search engines in the world.
Ask.com – This began in the 1990’s as AskJeeves, it is currently still operational and is within the top 10 popular search engines in America.
Regional search engines – Mojeek (UK), Web Wombat (Australia), Yandex (Russia), Canada Crawler (Canada)
Others – Search.com, AltaVista, AlltheWeb, HotBot, AOL, Netscape, GigaBlast, Live.com