by Matt McGee
One World Telecommunications
posted: March 2, 2004
Language sometimes gets in the way when we're trying to help a
client. Those of us who sit at computers all day long building
web sites, developing web tools, studying search engine results,
etc., tend to use some terms that some people aren't as familiar
with as we think they are.
This article will address one common manifestation of that: the
confusion over search engines and web directories. If this is old
news to you, skip the article, give yourself ten OWT Points, and
congratulate yourself for knowing your stuff. If you're one of
the many who's not sure of the different between a search engine,
a web directory, and how some sites can have both, this article
is right up your alley.
Search Engines
When we use the term "search engine", we're usually
referring to a crawler-based engine that uses a "spider" to
visit web pages -- discovering new pages along the way and discovering
updates
to pages the engine already knows about. It does this by following
links from page to page, site to site. The search engine "indexes"
these pages as it goes so that the pages can be included in search
results for appropriate search terms.
You don't need to "submit" your web site to a search engine, because
it will likely find you as it crawls the web. (But you do need
to get some other site to link to yours so the search engine can
find that link, and in doing so, find your site. See our article
"How do I get my site listed in Google?" for more about this.)
When someone does a search at a search engine, the results that
appear are based on a mathematical algorithm that
the search engine uses to determine how to rank and display pages.
Some search engines you may be familiar with: Google,
Inktomi, All
the Web, and now Yahoo has its own search engine, too.
Web Directories
A web directory is, in essence, like an online version of the
yellow pages. Web directories list web sites, usually in a categorical
heirarchy that groups together sites with similar themes. Web
directories are most often run by human editors (often volunteering
their time) who review sites that are submitted
for possible inclusion in the directory. Some directories require
payment, some don't.
Web directories are unlike a search
engine in that they have no "crawler" that scours the
web looking
for new
and
updated
pages.
Web directories don't
find you, unless a particularly enterprising editor has time
to seek out new sites to add to his/her category. That's a rarity,
so to have your site appear in a web directory, you will likely
need to submit your site to the appropriate category where your
site should be listed.
When someone browses through a web directory's categories, site
listings usually appear in alphabetical order. They use the title
of your site and the editor writes the description of your
site based on what he/she saw when reviewing your site. (There's
a skill to writing a site
description with your key words
and phrases that won't be rewritten by the editor.)
Some web directories you may be familiar with: Open
Directory Project, Yahoo Directory, Skaffe.
Where It Gets Confusing
The most confusing thing about learning the difference between
a search engine and a web directory is that the two are often brother
and sister at the same site:
Google is a search engine, but it also has a web directory you
can search. (Further confusion opportunity: Google's Directory
is a modified version of the Open Directory Project directory.)
Yahoo started out as a web directory, but now also offers its own
crawler-based
search results.
As a searcher or a web site owner, it's important to pay attention
to the default results you see when you use a search engine web
site. When you use Google, for example, your default results come
from their crawler-based engine, but at the top of the page you
can
click
the "Directory" link to see your search in their web
directory. Yahoo also offers similar tabs at the top of their search
results pages.
The more you know about where your search results
are coming from, the better searcher you'll be, and the smarter
web
site owner
you'll
be.
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