Search engines are scripts which download, and index the
contents of a web site, adding them to their database. The frequency of
refreshing the database depends on a number of factors, including the number of
sites which are in their database, the more sites the search engine has in their
database, the longer it will take for the search engine to have the opportunity
to go back to the site to update its database.
There are a number of new types of search engines, and
priority support for ranking, or inclusion into the search engines. Pay
per performance search engine listings allow sites to pay for a
higher listing in the search engine. Express inclusion services ensure
that your web site is updated in the search engine on a more frequent period
during the subscription period. Of the express inclusion services, the
Inktomi
Search Submit service represents the best value, since Inktomi is the search
engine which powers an extremely large network of popular internet portals.
Directories are edited by humans who go from one site to
another and review the sites which were submitted to be added to their database.
Since the directories are human powered, sites are usually only evaluated when
the site is originally submitted, and in some cases the directory will not allow
editing of the listing after it is submitted, or only allow editing within a
short window of time after the listing is submitted. For this reason, it
is important that you carefully optimize your web site for the directory, before
you submit it the first time.
Free links pages are sites which allow users to post their
links to their web site. In most cases the free links page listings expire
after a relatively short period of time, and don't in themselves result in a
large number of visitors, however since free links pages are traditional web
pages, the major search engines will count links on them as direct links when
the search engines index the free links page, this can result in an increase in
the search engine ranking on the major search engines.
