By Judy Camp
(c) Paradox Productions, Inc.
http://www.ourbusinessoffice.com
Search engine optimization and positioning is a science that is mysterious even to those who do it well, primarily because the rules keep changing. It's hard to keep up with the best way to raise your way up in listings...
Have you ever wondered which search engines are the most popular among users? Well, an August, 2002 study of more than 60,000 home and work surfers by Nielsen/NetRatings, has provided these findings, as reported by Search Engine Watch.
The top five search engines were as follows:
Yahoo, 29.8%
MSN, 29.5%
Google, 27.9%
AOL, 18.5%
Ask Jeeves, 11.4%
The numbers above may be misleading though, according to the study's own reports. Each person was only counted one time for each engine, so if John Smith used Yahoo once and Google 30 times, the numbers would give Yahoo and Google each one point.
Another part of the study provided data on "time spent on site." This provides a clearer picture on the actual amount of usage of each engine, which would actually reflect all 30 times John used Google. Here are the results of the time spent analysis.
Average Minutes Spent Searching per Visitor
Home and Work Users, August 2002:
Google, 26.7%
AOL, 11.3%
Yahoo, 10.2%
Infospace, 9.5%
Alta Vista, 9.3%
As you can see, this clearly changes the numbers dramatically, showing Google as the all out winner in the search engine wars.
Google is in the news for another reason though. According to Allan Gardyne's Associate Programs ezine, AssociatePrograms.com, "Yahoo! directory results and Google web pages are now combined to provide new 'Web Matches'. Suddenly, getting a high ranking in Google is even more important than ever."
So, whether you go by the first chart above, or the second, now what Google sees becomes what Yahoo sees. Google uses different criteria to determine its listings, two of the most important being the search words being found on the pages and the number of links pointing to you. If you haven't yet set up a links page, it's definitely time to do so. Make sure you have a link pointing to it from the home page, or it will be worthless to those on it. Offer a reciprocal link to anyone with a complementary site, or one going to the same audience you do.
Here are a few of the important considerations Google uses to rank a page:
* Keywords found in title and in text of page
* Number of links pointing to the page
* The wording of the text of the link pointing to the page (keywords)
* The popularity of the page that links to your page
* The total number of links on the page linking to you (the fewer the better)
I can't promise the rules won't change again in a few months, but these are the latest findings, from a reliable source. Everything about the web, including search engine positioning, is a continuous learning process, always evolving as it grows. As marketers, it becomes our job to keep up, and to change and grow with it.
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Judy Camp has been a writer and marketing manager for twenty years, and has focused on web marketing for the past five years. Her web site http://www.ourbusinessoffice.com provides resources for web businesses.
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