Search Engine Optimization

An excerpt from the Search Engine Secrets Master Course...

Last updated on November 3rd, 2007

Step #1: Optimizing for only the Top 4 Search Engines

Our research has proven that when you concentrate your efforts on optimizing your website to rank high only on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and ASK then all of the other Search Engines and Directories will automatically list or index your website at a much higher ranking.

Search Engine Statistics and Market Share:

Hitwise, a company which specializes in online market research recently did a survey which concluded that the 4 Largest Search Engines as of May 2007 are: See Figure 1:

• Google.com owns 65.1% market share.
• Yahoo.com owns 20.9% of market share.
• MSN.com owns 8.4% of market share.
• ASK.com owns 3.9% of market share


Figure 1: Search Engine Market Share Rankings for May 2007 from http://www.hitwise.com.

You should only focus on getting your website optimized for achieving the highest possible ranking in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) of Google (65.1%), Yahoo (20.9%), MSN (8.4%), and ASK (3.9%) because once your website is indexed on these 4 major Search Engines and Directory then you will be reaching 98.3% of the Total Search Engine Market.

Search Engines such as Google.com, MSN, ASK, and Online Directories such as Yahoo.com “POWER” the Search Engine Results Pages of many other large Search Engines.

To see an example of “Who Powers Who” go to http://www.search-this.com/search-engine-decoder.  here you will find an interactive graphical display that demonstrates this relationship between various Search Engines and Directories.

Understanding how Search Engines like Google Really Work:

To achieve the highest possible ranking on the major Search Engines and Online Directories it’s important that you understand how they really work and what really matters to them.

To truly understand how Google indexes your website and what it considers important then you should read the White Paper that the creators of Google wrote titled: “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper Textual Web Search Engine” by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page at http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html.

It only takes a few minutes to read but it will really educate you on how the Google Search Engine indexes websites, how it calculates a websites Page Rank, how it creates Hit Lists, and more. Figure 2 shows a diagram which summarizes how the Google Search Engine works.


Figure 2: How the Google Search Engine works.

Search Engine Facts as of July 2007:
 


Google at http://www.Google.com 
Cost to be indexed: FREE

Demographics of Google users:

• 51.5% of users are male.
• 48.5% of users are female.
• Male and female users are mostly under the age of 34.
• 42% of users were more likely to make an online purchase than the average Internet user.
• Users tend to type in more complex search queries, often using multiple keywords. Often highly targeted search queries such as this indicate that the user is close to making a purchasing decision.

Once you get your website listed on Google then your website will automatically appear in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) of other major Search Engines.

Google Powers the Search Engine Results of other Search Engines such as:

• http://www.AOL.com
• http://www.AltaVista.com
• http://www.MyWebSearch.com
• http://www.BellSouth.net
• http://www.Comcast.net
• http://www.DogPile.com
• http://www.Earthlink.net
• http://www.Netscape.com 
• http://www.MetaCrawler.com 


Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com
Cost to be indexed in the Yahoo Directory: $299.00 per year to have your website listed in their Directory but do not ever pay this fee because the YahooBot will automatically index your website and list it in their Yahoo Search Results Page for free.

Our 2007 Usability Results showed:

• Only 2% of participants used the Yahoo Directory which companies pay $299 annually to be listed in to search for products, services, and information.
• While 98% of participants used Yahoo Search which is free for companies to get their websites listed on.

Demographics of Yahoo users:

• 50.3% of users are female.
• 49.7% of users are male.
• Most popular with people under the age of 34, like Google is.
• 31% of users were more likely to make an online purchase.
• Users tend to type in simpler search queries, of just one or two keywords.

Yahoo Powers the results of other Search Engines such as:

• http://www.DogPile.com 
• http://www.MetaCrawler.com 
• http://www.MSN.com 
• http://www.Live.com 
• http://www.AllTheWeb.com 
• http://www.AltaVista.com 
• http://www.Go.com


MSN - Live.com at http://www.msn.com and http://www.live.com 
Cost to be indexed: FREE

Demographics of MSN users:

• 51% of users are female.
• 49% of users are male.
• Most users are over the age of 55.
• 48% of users were more likely to make an online purchase.
• Users tend to type in simpler search queries, of just one or two keywords.

MSN Powers the results of other Search Engines such as:

• http://www.HotBot.com
• http://www.DogPile.com


ASK at http://www.ask.com 
Cost to be indexed: Free

Demographics of ASK users:

• 57.7% of users are female.
• 46.3% of users are male.
• Most popular with people under the age of 34, like Google is.
• 17.2% of users were more likely to make an online purchase.
• Users tend to type in simpler search queries, of just one or two keywords.

ASK Powers the results of other Search Engines such as:

• http://www.MyWebSearch.com
• http://www.MyWay.com
• http://www.DogPile.com
• http://www.MetaCrawler.com
• http://www.Mamma.com
• http://www.Lycos.com
• http://www.HotBot.com

...end of excerpt.

You can learn more proven Search Engine Optimization Strategies that are fully detailed in the Search Engine Secrets Master Course by clicking here.

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