Search Engines Defined

Search Engines are defined as any Website that allows searching through listings to find other Website URLS. There are 3 types of search engines; Portals, Directories and Spiders.

1. Portals {Momma.com, Dogpile.com, etc..}

   As with almost all web search tools, these sites incorporate listing from multiple sources. The distinction here is that Pure Portals do not have a database of Website information themselves, but entirely depend on other companies for their data. Momma and Dogpile are the most inclusive of the portals, which is good for searching. To get the best listings here you need to have good listings with the Directories and Spider Sources behind them. When other companies tell you that they will submit your Website to thousands of Search engines, These are the engines they are talking about. There are actually less than 100 true Data sources you need to be listed in to be in these thousands of search engines.

2. Directories {Yahoo!, Open Directory, Looksmart, etc..}

   These search engines provide searching through their listings of human reviewed websites. The advantage here is that the pages actually contain the information your searching for. The listings are very limited as Yahoo and Looksmart charge money to be listed. The ODP listings, While free, Are purly arbitrary on the part of other web surfers like yourself.

3. Spider Databases {Google, Altavista, Alltheweb, etc..}

   When you submit your Website to these search engines, they put the page submitted in a Queue. At semi-regular intervals they have a software program (Spider) retrieve your Website. They then disaseble the text (and underlying code) of the page to determine what that page is all about. Knowing what these "Spiders" look for and how they index your Website is what this company is all about.