In This Issue:
1. Welcome to the First OWT Newsletter
2. In the News
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A
5. Wrapping It Up
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Welcome to the First OWT Newsletter
Thanks for subscribing to our new OWT Newsletter. This is a weekly
newsletter available to anyone interested in learning more
about web development, web design, search engine optimization/marketing,
and just about anything else related to running a business
web
site.
We have plenty of ideas about what we want this newsletter
to become, but we also want to know what you -- our loyal
subscribers -- want
to get from this newsletter. Don't hesitate to share feedback
with us: newsletter@owtweb.com
The ideas we have include a regular Q&A section where we'll answer
emails that come in from subscribers with questions about web development,
search engines, and just the general work involved in doing business
online. This should be a great way for everyone to learn from the
experiences of others. If you have questions, send them to questions@owtweb.com.
We'll also share news and thoughts about what's going on in the world
of web development, business web marketing, and search engines, as
well as links to news items and other articles we find interesting.
The end goal is to produce something that's both fun and informative!
It's inevitable that our subscriber base will be made up of
people with a varying degree of knowledge and understanding
about the
things we'll discuss each week. At some point, you'll probably
find us using
terms you don't know about or discussing things that don't
fully interest you. We hope you'll work through any learning
curves
and stay with us. Feel free to ask for help when needed.
And to wrap this up, it's my goal to eventually start getting
this newsletter sent out midweek. I don't know how soon that'll
happen,
but don't plan on always receiving this newsletter on Fridays.
_________________
In The News
The biggest recent news in the search engine world is that
Yahoo has finally dumped Google, and is now providing its
own set of
search results. For the past couple years, if you searched
at Yahoo the
results you saw came from Google. No more. Yahoo has purchased
the Inktomi, Alta Vista, and All the Web search engines
(as well as the
Overture advertising engine), and has combined those technologies
into a new search engine. (Meanwhile, All the Web and Alta
Vista continue to stand alone as separate search engines,
too. I would
guess Yahoo will use them as testing grounds for new search
technologies and algorithm changes.)
So how good is the new Yahoo search engine?
It's only been online since last week, so I have a lot
more research and testing to do, but so far I'd say it's
pretty
good. Not great,
because there are a fair amount of spammy, keyword-bloated
web sites ranking well in certain areas. For some search
terms, Yahoo
is returning
relevant web sites, but not quality web sites. It's almost
like Google's search engine was a couple years ago before
they really
got good
at separating quality web sites from the rest of the
pack.
Meanwhile, over at Google....
At almost the same time that Yahoo announced it was ditching
Google, Google issued a press
release to say that its web index now includes
more than six billion items, 4.28 billion of which
are web pages. The "my search engine is bigger than your search engine" war
has been going on for a couple years now, with Google and All the
Web (now owned by Yahoo) in a race to see who can index more of the
web.
Of course, as a searcher you're more concerned with
quality than size, but Google knows that bragging about
having
the biggest
index is one way of saying that Google is still the
place to find even
the most esoteric information online. And we all know
that quality is not usually an issue with Google's
search results.
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More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time to read.
These are just some of the headlines we've posted
to OWTweb.com in recent
days.
Search Engine Strategy: Links or Content?
February 25, 2004 - Search Engine Guide
Focusing on one side of the equation (content or
links) represents a decision to ignore half of
the Internet.
Helping Your Visitors: a State of Mind
February 20, 2004 - A List Apart
It means putting a sticky note on your monitor,
just to remind you to stay focused: What can
I do to this
homepage
that
will make it
more helpful for my visitors?
Yahoo! Birth of a New Machine
February 18, 2004 - Search Engine Watch
Yahoo isn't replacing Google with Inktomi.
Rather, the company has developed a brand
new search
engine.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
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This Week's Q&A
Matt,
Thanks for the chance to send in questions
like this. What's the current story
with regard to
submitting a web site
to the search
engines? I keep getting emails and
seeing advertisements from companies that will
submit my site to
500 search
engines for
$29.95.
Thanks,
Eric
Hi Eric -- the current story about
submitting to search engines is
a pretty short one.
You don't
need to bother
with it.
Most of the
crawler-based search engines (Google,
All the Web, etc.) all offer a
way to submit
your site,
but
they also say
you're basically
wasting
your time to do it. The fact is
that these crawlers will find your site
more quickly
once there are
other sites
linking to
yours.
So that's the best way to "submit" your site to the crawler-based
search engines -- find other quality web sites (but not link farms
or FFA sites) and seek out a link from their site to yours. When
the search engine crawlers discover that link, they'll discover your
site and be in a position to add your site to their index.
There are a couple exceptions to
this, of course. There's a very
small --
but growing
in popularity
-- crawler-based search
engine
called Gigablast that will reportedly
add sites submitted through its
web site. Gigablast
is
a minor player
so there may not
be much value there at this point.
And the other exception is that
you
do need to submit your site to
web directories such as the ODP (Open
Directory Project), Skaffe.com,
GoGuides.org, etc. These are human-reviewed
directories
and the only
way they
find out about
new sites is when
someone submits the site for inclusion.
And as far as the "500 search engines" claim -- 95% or
more of web users use the largest search engines: Google, Yahoo,
MSN Search, Ask/Teoma, etc. Don't waste your time or money chasing
down a tiny amount of traffic from search engines no one has ever
heard of.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
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Wrapping it Up
That's all for this one. The first
issue of our OWT Newsletter
is in the books.
See you
again
next week
-- let us know
if there are
things you'd like to see
added, things you'd like us to talk
about, or questions
you'd
like answered.
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
The OWT Newsletter is a weekly service offered free to anyone
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optimization/marketing, and just about anything else related to
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