How Search Engines Work and How to Improve Your Ranking in a Search Engine

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How Search Engines Work and How to Improve Your
Ranking in a Search Engine

• Guthrie, Winter 2003

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Search Engines

• Google (Backwards)
• AltaVista
• HotBot
• Excite
• Yahoo
• Lycos
• WebCrawler
• MetaSearch

Crawler based Human directory Hybrid
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Basic Operation

• search engine components
• spider/crawler
• index
• search engine
• index - database
• periodically updated (varies for SEs)
• different size (varies for SEs)

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How To Gain a High Ranking

• SEs rank sites differently. Some cannot handle
  frames, some look at Metatags, some look at the
  content and titles of the documentsetc.
  
• Boosting listings. SEs can give a site a higher
  listing based on keyword (HotBot, Infoseek), link
  popularity (WebCrawler), site reviewetc.
  
• SE Spamming. Sites can be deleted for SE
  spamming (listing non-relevant metatags to
  improve a ranking).

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Tips for Improving Your Ranking

• Choose keywords strategically. (relevant, 2
  words).
  
• Location - Keyword location in the page.
  (metatags, title, top paragraph)
  
• Frequency - How frequently does your phrase
  appear in relation to your content?
  
• Links on other pages.

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Submitting Your URL with a Search Engine

• Yahoo - (bottom left of main page - how to
  suggest a site) need to be within category
  
• Altavista - (bottom left)
• Google (within directory)

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Resources

• http//www.searchenginewatch.com
• W3C
• How Stuff Works
• Any Search Engine Help

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Meta Tags

• Contain Meta data about the page.
• Located in head of document.
• 4 attributes
• Content provides info for http-equiv and name
• http-equiv browser instructions
• Name to specify type of information in content
• Scheme to give additional information

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MetaTags - Name

• Description
• Tutorial"
  
• Keyword
• petstore"
  
• Generator
• 
  
  
• Author

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Meta Tags - HTTP-Equiv

• Refresh
• urlhttp//www.csupomona.edu"
  
• Expired
• 1996 142527 GMT"
  
• No-Cache

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Summary

• Need a name and place to host your Web site
• Need to make your Web site visible
• Need to have a holistic view of what you are
  trying to do
  
• Meta Tag Generator

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Misc.

• Game googlewhack
• An Advanced Search
• Add a search to your site http//www.google.com/s
  earchcode.htmlstandard