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

Search Engines and Directories

    As mentioned in the brief history described in chapter 1, search engines in the early to mid 1990’s originally had a smaller coverage, and were not as highly specialized as the ones being used today.

    Search engines of the present time are highly sophisticated, even with their own systems of updating itself, as well as arming itself with technology to help prevent spamming and unlawful use of SEO techniques. More on SEO problems and mistakes will be described in chapter 10.

    You can read on to find out about some guidelines imposed for web masters who want to be seen on MSN, Yahoo, Google, and other directories. Discussed in the following sections of this chapter are the major search engines and directories:

  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • MSN
  • DMOZ
  • Yahoo Directory
  • Google Directory

    Just a tidbit: did you know that there are also organizations that provide updated info on the kinds of keywords that are being typed into the search query boxes of Yahoo, MSN, and Google? The search terms are even grouped into categories, whether they are for entertainment, health, business, information technology, and the like.

    As of the start of 2008, some of the most popular search terms on Google around the world were: iPhone, Facebook, YouTube, Webkinz, eBuddy, Second Life, and Club Penguin, to name a few. Even if these were the most popular, the number of searches made using these keywords are only a small percentage as compared to the total bulk of search queries that Google receives from around the world.