Google

34.8% of US Searchers use Google.com as a primary search tool. Google is the world's largest search engine reportedly delivering more than 200 million answers per day by over 73.5 million user per month (Nielsen//NetRatings 2/03).

Getting Listed with Google
(Information pulled directly from the Google.com website)

It is NOT necessary to submit your site to Google in order to be included in the Google index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed are not manually submitted for inclusion.

Direct Listing with Google.

The only way a site may be listed with Google directly is by using the page here. You can submit your site as often as you like, but multiple submissions will not improve the likelihood of your site being added or accelerate the process. Google does not penalize sites for 'over-submitting'. If you choose to submit your site, only the top-level domain is necessary, as the spiders will follow your internal links to all the rest of the pages.

Alternative ways of listing in Google.

Google partners on the Web include Yahoo! and Netscape. If you are having difficulty getting listed in the Google index, you may want to consider submitting your site to either or both of these directories. You can submit to Yahoo! by visiting here. You can submit your site to Netscape's Open Directory Project (DMOZ) by visiting here. Once your site is included in either of these directories, Google will often index your site within six to eight weeks.

The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely it is that we'll find you quickly.

Reasons why your site may not be included:

Your pages are dynamically generated. Google is able to index dynamically generated pages. However, because Googles web crawler can easily overwhelm and crash sites serving dynamic content, Google limits the amount of dynamic pages it indexes.

You employ doorway pages. Google does not encourage the use of doorway pages. Google wants to point users to content pages, not to doorways or splash screens.

Your page uses frames. Google supports frames to the extent that it can. Frames tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don't fit the conceptual model of the web (every page corresponds to a single URL). If a user's query matches the site as a whole, Google returns the frame set. If a user's query matches an individual page on the site, Google returns that page. That individual page is not displayed in a frame -- because there may be no frame set corresponding to that page.

If you are concerned with the description of your site as seen by search engines, please read "Search Engines and Frames". It describes the use of the 'NoFrames' tag, which is used to provide alternative content. If, instead of providing alternative content, you use wording such as "This site requires the use of frames" or "Upgrade your browser", then you are excluding both search engines and people who use browsers with frames turned off. (For example, audio web browsers, such as those used in automobiles and by the visually impaired, typically do not deal with frames, which are a visual mechanism.) You can read about NoFrames in the HTML standard here.

Reasons Google may not index all of your pages.

Although Google indexes more than 3 billion web pages, Google does not guarantee to crawl all the pages on a particular site. For more information about how Google finds and includes pages in Googles index please click here. If your site's internal link structure does not provide a path to all your pages, Googles robot may not see all the pages on your site. Google follows links from one page to the next, so pages that are not linked to by others may be missed.

Reasons Google may have dropped your site.

Changes from one index to the next.
Each time Google update Googles database of web page (about once a month), Googles index shifts: Google find new sites, Google lose some sites, and site rankings change. If your site was dropped from Google and you have not made major changes to it in the last month, Google will likely pick it up again in Googles next index. It's possible your site was simply inaccessible when Googles robots tried to crawl it.

You may want to check and see if the number of other sites linking to your URL has decreased. This is the single biggest factor in determining what sites are indexed by Google, as Google find most pages when Googles robots crawl the web and jump from page to page via hyperlinks. To find out who links to your site, use Google's link tool.

It's also possible your rank decreased because other sites were found and assigned a higher rank. You can be assured that no one at Google has hand adjusted the results to boost the ranking of a site. Google's order of results is automatically determined by several factors, including Googles PageRank algorithm. Please check out Googles "Why Use Google" page for more information on how this works.

Multiple indices
Google update Googles index about every four weeks. If you happen to enter the same query repeatedly while Google is in the process of posting the index at Googles various data centers around the country, it might seem like you are seeing inconsistent results from Google. What is actually happening is that you are seeing a result from an 'old' version of Googles index one time and a result from a 'new' version the next. Due to the size of Googles index, Google can not simultaneously post a new index at all of Googles data centers, which may result in this behavior for a short period of time.

Other reasons
If your page does not appear at all, here are some other possible explanations. Your site may not have been reachable when Google tried to crawl it because of network or hosting problems. When this happens, Google retry multiple times, but if the site cannot be crawled, it will not be listed in Googles current index. If it was a transient problem, your site will likely show up in the next index, which will be completed in a few weeks.

A technical glitch on Googles side may have caused us to 'miss' your site. In crawling more than 3 billion pages every few weeks, Googles system experiences hiccups from time to time. Again, this is a transient problem, and your site will likely show up in the next index. Please be patient with us during this period, as Google is not able to modify Googles index by hand to add sites missed in this way.

The contents of your page or the links pointing to your page changed significantly and you no longer have a sufficiently high PageRank, or your page had low PageRank to begin with and a small change caused you to be dropped from the Google index.

Your page was manually removed from Googles index, because it did not conform to the quality standards necessary to assign accurate PageRank. Google will not comment on the individual reasons a page was removed and Google does not offer an exhaustive list of practices that can cause removal. However, certain actions such as cloaking, writing text that can be seen by search engines but not by users, or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines may result in permanent removal from Googles index. If you think your site may fall into this category, you might try 'cleaning up' the page and sending a re-inclusion request to [help@google.com]. Google does not make any guarantees about if or when Google will re-include your site.

Google Questions and Answers:
Created by: Kelly Beil, Manager, FreeSiteTemplates.com

What is the 'Google Dance' The 'Google Dance' is what the monthly update is commonly called. It refers to the update process that is visible in the index. The update takes about a week to complete and during that time you will see the listings vary wildly from new data to old while positions will jump up and down (and sometimes completely out) in a SERP as well.

When does Google update?

Google has a standard monthly update, which generally occurs at the end of every month. The data for this update is gathered during the preceding weeks. Google has been known to delay updates (or process them sooner than expected) when the mood strikes. Chances are delays are due to new algorithms being implemented and tested.

When will Google spider my site and how can I tell? Googlebot (Google's spider) finds sites by following links from other sites. The more links to your site they find the the chance of Googlebot finding you. They also follow links from their addurl form, but prefer to find links to you instead. You can check to see if/when Googlebot has visited by reviewing your site's logs located on your server. When Googlebot visits you will see a reference to 'The little robot that google.com sends out to spider website content GoogleBot' or 'crawler12.googlebot.com' or something similar. They announce who they are. For more on locating and viewing your server logs you need to speak to your hosting company. Many common website statistics (site stats) programs will gather this information and present an easy to read report for you.

What is PageRank?

PageRank is Google's method of ranking web pages. Google basically counts the number of incoming links to your web PAGE and (considers various other factors) to determine the importance of your web page and where it should rank. Keep in mind that this is only one factor in ranking.

Common listing description questions Can I change my description?

What is my description?

That's not the description I wanted!

The description Google provides with your listing is comprised of what they call Snippets. Snippets are created by taking the searched term and pulling that, along with the surrounding text, from your text data on your page. This Snippet is variable and changes with the search term.

If your site/url has an ODP/DMOZ listing then Google will list the ODP description below the Snippet, indicated by the word 'Description:' preceding it. The only way to alter this is by getting your ODP description altered.

What are internal links, external links, backlinks? Internal links are links to your own site from withing your own site. External links are links to your site from someone else's site. Backlinks describes the links that Google shows as counting towards your site. Via the Google ToolBar there is a button that states "Backward Links" which when clicked is supposed to show you sites linking to the page your browser is currently viewing. Note that this button does not show all links indexed or credited to your site. Common belief is that it only shows links with a PR4 or above and that it also only shows 1/2 of the links credited to your site/page.

Yahoo

32% of US Searchers use Yahoo.com as a primary search tool. Yahoo Web Pages is currently powered by the Inktomi database.

Yahoo Directory

The Yahoo Directory is organized by subject. Most sites in it are suggested to Yahoo by users. Sites are placed in categories by Yahoo editors, who visit and evaluate suggestions and decide where the sites best belong. Yahoo explains that this is done to ensure that Yahoo is organized in the best possible way, making the directory easy to use, intuitive, helpful, and fair to everyone.

Submitting your site to Yahoo!
By Sumantra Roy - payperclicksearchengines.com

First, you should note that Yahoo! is not a search engine - it is a directory. Unlike the search engines, an actual human editor evaluates your site.

Find out whether your site is already listed in Yahoo!. Type in the domain name of your site in Yahoo!'s search box, and see whether your site comes up in the Web Sites section. Note that for your site to be listed in Yahoo!, it has to come up in the Web Sites section. If it is listed in the Web Pages section but not in the Web Sites section, it means that your site is listed in Google, not Yahoo!. If your site is already listed but you are not satisfied with the listing, read the last section of this article on changing your site's listing in Yahoo!.

Before starting, read Yahoo!'s instructions thoroughly. Read their Help Index and their How To page. Familiarize yourself with these instructions because they mean every word of what they say.

Before you submit your site, go through your entire site and ensure that there are no missing graphics, no links leading to empty or non-existent pages, no "Under construction" symbols and no typos or grammatical errors. Your site should be easy to navigate, should load quickly and should look professional. Furthermore, your site must provide unique content. Yahoo!'s definition of unique content is very strict - if your site simply consists of a one page sales letter, or, if it only contains links to various affiliate programs, you will find it impossible to get listed. For getting listed in Yahoo!, your site needs to have at least a few pages of good content in it.

Also, your site needs to be in its own domain, especially if it is of a commercial nature. Having your own domain adds more credibility to your site and tells Yahoo! that yours is a serious site which won't be taken down very soon. Getting into Yahoo! is hard enough - not having your own domain will make it that much harder.

Furthermore, if your site is of a commercial nature (i.e. it is selling something), you need to mention the physical address of your business either in the home page of your site or in a separate Contact Us page which is linked prominently from the home page. This should be the actual physical address of your business - not a Post Office Box address. Of course, mentioning the physical address of your business is something you should be doing anyway - it boosts the credibility of your business which improves sales. Along with the physical address, you should also mention a phone number and a fax number (if you have one). Of course, you should always mention an email address.

Also, before submitting, select the two most important keywords for your site based on their popularity. You should look at both the popularity of the keyword as well as its competitiveness. However, for the purpose of this article, don't worry about the competitiveness - select keywords only on the basis of popularity.

How Yahoo! displays its search results.

There are 5 sections in the Yahoo! search results - Categories, Web Sites, Web Pages, Related News and Events. For the purpose of this article, we can ignore the Related News and Events sections and concentrate on the Categories, Web Sites and Web Pages sections. When someone searches for a keyword in Yahoo!, it first checks to see whether there are any categories which contain all the individual words of the keyword. If so, it first displays the names of those categories. It then displays the web sites in the Yahoo! index which match the keyword. Finally, in the Web Pages section, it displays sites from Google.

Assuming that your site is not listed, your objective is to get your site a high ranking in the Web Sites section. Here are the factors which influence the ranking of your site in the Web Sites section:

Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword somewhere in the name of the category or in the name of a higher level category.

Click Popularity: The concept of click popularity, first popularized by the Direct Hit search engine, means that when a user searches for something in Yahoo!, it tries to find out which sites satisfied the user's needs. It does this by keeping track of two things:

a) which sites the user clicked on among the sites displayed in the results and

b) how much time the user spent in those sites. The logic behind this is that if a user clicked on a particular site and spent a lot of time in that site, that site must have satisfied the user's needs and hence, must be relevant to that particular keyword. In this case, the site's click popularity for that keyword improves and so does its ranking for that keyword. But, if a user did not go to a particular site, or returned to Yahoo! soon after going to that site, that site must not be providing relevant information for that particular keyword. In this case, the site's click popularity for that keyword declines and so does its ranking for that keyword.

Now, when you first get your site listed in Yahoo!, since Yahoo! does not have any data on the click popularity of your site, it will be listed right at the bottom of the search results. A question that arises here is - how a site which is listed right at the bottom of the search results can have many users clicking on it so that its click popularity improves. The answer to this is that when a user clicks on a site which is listed at the bottom, its click popularity improves by a greater extent than when it is listed at the top. This means that it only requires a few users clicking on your site to improve the click popularity of your site when it is listed at the bottom.

There are only two ways of improving the click popularity of your site - the description of your site in Yahoo! needs to be attractive and you need to build an excellent web site with great content which satisfies your visitor's needs so that they stay longer in your site.

Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword in the Title and Description. If you want to rank highly for a keyword, the Title and the Description that you use to submit your site to Yahoo! should contain the keyword. Note that this Title is not the title that you have used in the home page of your web site and that this Description is not the description that you have used in the Meta Description tag of your home page. Rather, it is the Title and the Description of your site's listing in Yahoo!.

An important point to note here is that Yahoo! searches for strings rather than words. This means that if one of the individual words of the keyword is embedded inside another word, this will still boost your rankings. For instance, if the keywords applicable for your site contain the word Australia, but the description of your site in Yahoo! contains the word Australian, the fact that the string Australia is present inside the word Australian will be taken into consideration when your site is ranked.

Prominence of the keyword in the Title and the Description."Prominence" means how close the keyword is to the beginning of the Title and Description. Other things remaining the same, closer the keyword to the beginning of the Title and the Description, higher your ranking.

Presence of the keyword or a part of the keyword in the URL. You will get a slightly higher ranking if the keyword or a part of the keyword is also present in the URL of your site.

Now we come to the Title for your site. The Title is important not only because the presence of a keyword in the Title helps to boost the ranking of your site, but also because sites in the various categories in Yahoo! are listed alphabetically according to the Title. However, Yahoo! insists that the Title should always be the official name of your site. Hence, short of changing the official name of your site, there is not much you can do about the Title.

Now we come to how you should write the description of your site. When you write the description, your aim should be to make the Yahoo! editor's job as easy as possible. You should not give the editor the feeling that he/she needs to edit your description in any way. The moment an editor starts to edit your description, you risk having your keywords removed from your description or worse, having it changed in a way which does not reflect the content of your site.

Your description should be a single sentence which conveys what your site is all about and contains the two keywords you are targeting as close as possible to the beginning of the description. However, your description should not just be a list of keywords - the description that you use should be a proper sentence and should be grammatically correct. It should also be attractive to your visitors so that they actually click on it, which will improve the click popularity of your site, and hence its ranking in Yahoo!.

Broadly, here are the rules that you should remember when forming the description:

Make sure that the description can tell a visitor what your site is all about. Things like "Have a look at our site" or "Welcome to my site" does not tell a visitor what your site does.

Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or exclamation marks. Phrases like "The best web site dealing with widgets!!" or "Offers the BEST QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can find anywhere" are inappropriate.

Don't capitalize any word in your description - not even the first word. For some reason, Yahoo! prefers that the first word of your description is not capitalized. If you look at the sites in any Yahoo! category, you will find that almost none of them have the first word capitalized. Of course, if some of the words in the description are proper nouns, then you should capitalize them.

Write the description in the third person. Don't say "We offer financial planning and credit counseling services", say "offers financial planning and credit counseling services.".

Don't make your description too long - limit yourself to 10 words at the most. If you are lucky, you may be able to get accepted with a description longer than 10 words. However, longer the description, higher the probability that the editor will want to edit it.

Check your description for typos and grammatical mistakes.

End your description with a period. If the editor has to add the period to the end of your description, she may also end up editing the description, which is not what you want. Your aim is to have the editor accept the exact description that you had written in order to ensure that your keywords are not removed from the description.

Now that you know the description that you should use, it is time to establish the category to which you should submit your site. First of all, you need to determine whether your site is regionally specific. If your site is applicable to a specific geographic region, then you should submit your site to the appropriate Regional Category in Yahoo!. However, if your site is not specific to a particular region, then your site should be listed in one of the main Yahoo! categories.

Now, if your site is commercial in nature (i.e. if it sells a product or service) and is not regionally specific, it belongs somewhere under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business categories. If your site is targeted towards individual consumers, then your site needs to be under the Shopping and Services category. If your site is targeted towards other businesses, it needs to be in the Business to Business category.

If your site is both commercial in nature and regionally specific, your site needs to be under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business category of the relevant regional category.

With this background, let's see how you can determine the appropriate category for your site. Simply search for the two keywords which you have determined earlier. Go through all the categories which the top ranking sites belong to. Note down the category (or categories) which contain sites which are very similar to yours. In many cases, there will only be one category which contains sites similar to yours. In that case, this is the category to which you should submit your site. If you find that there is more than one category which contains sites similar to yours, and if you are convinced that all these categories are applicable for your site, select the two categories which contain the least number of sites. Your primary category will be the one with the least number of sites. The secondary category will obviously be the other category.

Now, create a text file in which you can record the details of your submission. Note down the date when you are submitting, the URL of your web site, the Title and the Description of your site as well as the URLs of the category (or the 2 categories) which are applicable for your site. Now go to the URL of the Primary category for your site, click on the Suggest a Site link at the bottom of the page and follow the instructions there. (If that category does not have a Suggest a Site link, then it means that it is a very general category to which new sites cannot be added.) Instead of submitting your site right away, I recommend that you first use a dummy, non-existent site to know the questions that Yahoo! is going to ask you. Note down the answers to these questions in the text file so that you can paste them later when you are actually submitting your site. Of course, don't actually submit the dummy site by clicking on the final submission button - just use it to get an idea of the questions that Yahoo! will ask you.

Of particular importance are two questions. Yahoo! asks you whether there is any other category in which your site should be listed apart from the category to which you are submitting. If you have been able to locate more than one category which is applicable for your site, mention the URL of the secondary category in this field.

Yahoo! also asks you for some comments regarding your submission. If you have a unique product or service that not many other web sites listed in Yahoo! are offering, mention this here. Or, if you provide lots of articles and tips related to your business, mention this here. You can also use this to point Yahoo! to the testimonials that you have received. The comments should be made using less than 200 characters.

Also note that Yahoo! asks for your physical address, phone number, fax number, email address etc. These should be the same as the particulars listed in your site.

Once you have noted down the answers to all the questions that Yahoo! is going to ask you, double check everything present in the text file to ensure that there are no mistakes and that all the URLs (i.e. the URLs of the categories as well as the URL of your site) are working correctly. It is very difficult to change your site's listing in Yahoo! once you get listed, and hence, you need to ensure that you do everything correctly the first time. Then, offer a prayer to Goddess Yahoo! :-), go to the URL of the primary category for your site, click on the Suggest a Site link listed at the bottom and submit your site. Make sure that you follow all the instructions that are mentioned here to the absolute letter.

Now, remember that if yours is a commercial site and is not regionally specific, it must be under the Business and Economy > Shopping and Services or Business and Economy > Business to Business categories of the main Yahoo! directory. Yahoo! no longer offers a free submission option for sites under these two categories - you have no choice but to pay them $199 for the Business Express submission option. For more information on this, go to their How to Suggest a Business Express Site page. Read the instructions and terms and conditions of the Business Express submission in order to ensure that your site is eligible. Paying them $199 does not guarantee you a listing and your site is not given any preference in its rankings. Using the Business Express option merely guarantees that your site will be reviewed within 7 days and that, in case it is not accepted, you will be told why your site was not accepted. You shall also have a chance of appealing a rejection within 30 days. Of course, all the instructions regarding choosing a proper description and choosing a correct category are still applicable.

If your site does not belong to these two categories, you can either submit your site for free, or you can use the Business Express submission option. I recommend that you first try to get your site listed for free. Use the Business Express option as a last resort.

Once you have finished submitting, don't delete the text file - you will need it later when you want to again submit to Yahoo! (in case you are not accepted the first time).

What to do if your site is not accepted

This section is intended for those who have used the free submission and have not been listed. In case you have used the paid submission and have been rejected, see the next section.

Unless you are very lucky, if you have used the free submission, your site may not be accepted in your first attempt. If your site is not accepted within 1 month from the time that you submitted it, submit it again using the same instructions as above. If your site is still not accepted 1 month after the second submission, some people have suggested that you write to a special Yahoo! address - url-support@yahoo-inc.com. However, in my personal experience, writing to this address has not been effective. Instead, here's what you should do:

I have accidentally discovered the email address of an actual editor of Yahoo!. Her name is Rosie Skaw and her email address is rosie@yahoo-inc.com. I am mentioning her email address here with the understanding that no one abuses it. This method works but it is not one of the familiar "back doors to Yahoo!" that one often gets to hear of (believe me, there are no back doors to Yahoo!). This email address should be used only after you have tried to submit your site to Yahoo! at least twice using the steps outlined earlier and have failed.

After submitting your site twice, if you still don't manage to get listed, write a very polite email to Rosie. Introduce yourself, tell her that you have been trying to submit your site to Yahoo! and have failed. Give her the details of your last submission - when you submitted it, the URL of your site, the Title and the Description that you used as well as the category (or categories) to which you submitted your site. If you have a unique product or service that not many other web sites listed in Yahoo! are offering, mention it. Or, if you provide lots of articles and tips related to your business, mention that too. You can also point her to the testimonials that you have received. Request her (very politely) to evaluate your site and add it to Yahoo! if she finds your site appropriate.

Once you have sent the email to Rosie, wait another month or so to see if you get listed. If you still can't get listed, don't send her any more emails. Yahoo! provides a phone number for listing support. The number is 408-731-3333. Call this number and leave a message mentioning your URL and the date when you last submitted and requesting (again, very politely) that your site be listed.

If the phone call does not get you listed, consider writing to Yahoo! at
Yahoo! Corporation
3420 Central Expressway,
2nd floor Santa Clara, CA 95051, USA

In this case too, mention your URL, the date when you last submitted, the Title and Description that you used and the category to which you submitted. Don't forget to mention the fact that you are selling a unique product or that you provide lots of articles or that you have received glowing testimonials from users.

If you still can't get your site listed, and you are convinced that your site deserves to get into Yahoo! and that you have followed all the rules, you should then use the Business Express submission option.

What to do if your Business Express submission is rejected

A common reason for Yahoo! rejecting a site when it has used the Business Express submission option is lack of original content. If you get a message from Yahoo! that your site was rejected because of a lack of unique content, then your site may either be full of affiliate links and nothing else, or it may be a 1 page direct response sales site. In the former case, as I mentioned, your site cannot hope to get listed. In the latter case, you need to divide up your sales message into multiple pages. Consider adding a few articles and tips related to your site. Then, send a polite reply to Yahoo! thanking them for their constructive feedback. Point out the fact that after receiving the feedback, you have added the articles and tips. Be specific here - tell them the exact URLs which contains these articles. Then request them to review your site again and add it, if they find it appropriate.

Another reason that they may say that your site lacks original content is that you already have another site listed in Yahoo! and are trying to get a new site listed. If the two sites have essentially the same content, then you will definitely be rejected. However, even if the two sites have substantially different content, you may still be rejected. In this case, there is no point in appealing the rejection - Yahoo! will definitely reject your site again when you appeal.

Instead, what you can try doing is to remove all links from the new site to the old site (and vice-versa) and ensuring that the design of the new site is also completely different from the old site and that no part of the content of the old site is present in the new site (and vice-versa). Then, wait 2-3 months, and again submit the new site to Yahoo! using its Business Express submission.

Another common reason for the rejection of sites is that in Yahoo!'s opinion, the site is still under construction. If you are convinced that your site does not contain missing graphics, links leading to empty or non-existent pages, "Under construction" symbols etc., then a common reason for Yahoo! saying that the site is under construction is that the site cannot be properly viewed under Netscape. Yahoo! editors generally use Netscape and hence, it is vitally important that your site be accessible using Netscape. You need to ensure that your site can be viewed properly in Netscape v3.0 and above. In order to see how your site looks under different browsers, click here. Once you have ensured that your site is accessible under Netscape, send a polite reply to their rejection note thanking them for their constructive feedback and then stating that the site no longer contains any elements under construction. Then request them to review your site again and add it, if they find it appropriate.

How to change your site's listing in Yahoo!

If getting your site listed in Yahoo! is tough, changing your site's listing is a Herculean task. Firstly, note that Yahoo! does not care about the ranking of your site. Hence, if you are trying to submit some minor changes to the description with a view of getting a higher ranking, you are unlikely to be successful. You should only think about trying to change your listing if;

a) the URL of your site has changed, or

b) the official name of your site has changed (and hence the Title of your listing should change), or

c) Yahoo! has accidentally listed your site without a Description, or

d) the Description contains a typo, or

e) Yahoo! has placed you in a totally inappropriate category, or

f) the nature of your site has changed and the current description does not reflect the new nature of your site.

The URL for changing your site's listing is here. Read the instructions thoroughly before submitting your change request. In the last text box, provide solid reasons as to why your site's listing should be changed.

If you can't get your site's listing changed within 1 month from the time that you have submitted your request, try submitting your request again. If you still can't get your listing changed within 1 month from the second request, follow the procedures outlined in the section on what to do if your site can't get into Yahoo! using the free submission. However, don't submit a change request using the Business Express submission - Yahoo! specifically forbids that.

Wrapping things up

Once you have got your site into Yahoo! (they will send you an email if you are accepted), your site will be added to Yahoo!'s What's New section. Furthermore, your site will be marked as new and will be placed at the top of the category (or categories) for 1 week from the time that your site is first listed. This placement at the top of the category can bring in quite a few visitors to your site every day. After the first week, the position of your site in the categories will be according to the alphabetical ranking of your Title. This will generally be accompanied by a decrease in the number of visitors to your site from Yahoo!.

Initially, because Yahoo! lacks any click popularity data on your site, it will be placed at the bottom of the results when someone searches for the keywords applicable for your site. However, with time, your site should start moving up leading to an increase in traffic to your site.

Yahoo Help Pages

I've submitted my site -- why hasn't it been added?
Unlike a search engine (e.g., Alta Vista, Hotbot, Google), every site in the Yahoo! Directory is reviewed by hand; the process of adding a site to the Directory is not automated. Here are some guidelines to follow that will help us review your site in a timely manner:

If you are submitting a commercial web site to the Business and Economy category (or any of its subcategories), you are required to use the fee-based Yahoo! Express process. This submission process guarantees that your site is reviewed within seven (7) business days.

If you are submitting a non-commercial web site, you have two options for suggesting your site to Yahoo!.

If you would like to be guaranteed a review and response to your submission, please suggest your site using our fee-based Yahoo! Express process.

Alternately, you can suggest your site to non-commercial categories using our free Standard Submission process. Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to guarantee a review of every site submitted through the Standard Submission process. You can submit the site once every two or three weeks. Please do not submit the site many times over a short period of time. We treat multiple submissions as spam, and your requests may be dropped from consideration. We want to be as inclusive as possible, but sometimes we have to make tough decisions about what to include. We do not include every site that is submitted to us, and we reserve the right to choose which sites we include.

MSN Search

MSN Search is currently the third largest in the U.S. MSN, now utilizes Inktomi as its primary database, after dropping Looksmart on January 15th, 2004. Microsoft is currently developing their own search engine, which is rumored to debut shortly before the release of its new operating system, named Longhorn. The new MSN search engine is already crawling and indexing the web under the name MSNBot. Millions of sites have already seen the path of MSNBot on their websites.

MSN is currently running Beta version of the new MSN Search in select areas throughout the country. Webmasters and Internet users alike are excited about MSN's new Search functionality, as MSN will now be a more larger competitor in the vast Search space. MSN will now take on Yahoo! and Google head to head. MSN.com has also revamped its entire web presence, and now supports searching and surfing in high-speed and low-speed connectivity.

AOL Search

AOL, currently the world's 4th highest searched web property, utilizes Google's database and algorithm to display its results. In January 2004 AOL.com removed its search feature from its home page. The AOL search feature can still be found at search.aol.com, and is still the default search for AOL browsers, and ISP users. AOL looks like it will probably have a fairly long-term relationship with Google. Getting listed and ranked in Google is the key to driving traffic from the AOL portal.

Ask Jeeves

Ask Jeeves, the cartoon butler, is the web's 5th largest search property.
Ask Jeeves utilizes Teoma as its database provider. Ask Jeeves, one of the more profitable search engines, employs a revenue based model within its search results. Jeeves sells its top results, and uses Google for its other sponsored results. A large portion of Jeeves natural search results are also paid for through either Paid Inclusion or XML Feeds. Jeeves is known to have a good algorithm, and has done well not to grow too fast. Jeeves looks to be a long-term player in the Search space, and currently makes up approx. 4-5% of user searches.

Altavista

In the mid-90's there were only a hand full of major search engines, and Altavista was one of them. After being purchased by CMGI Altavista was thrown in the spotlight as a top 3 search engine, ranking with Yahoo, Excite, and Infoseek. As time went Altavista lost search share to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Google, and is now the 6th largest player in the search space.

Altavista utilizes its own proprietary database and algorithm, and like Ask Jeeves and Inktomi also utilizes a revenue based model to display its search results. Both Ask Jeeves and Altavista still utilize their natural results, some of which are spidered freely, and some of which are paid for.

AV too looks like a long-term player in the Search space. Paid Inclusion is the best way to guarantee a listing in AV, and optimization and link popularity is the best way to attain rankings.