Strange things can happen for other reasons as well. Sometimes the relevance ranking systems that search engines use (and which they are reluctant to reveal), can throw off your search by ignoring some of the words in your search statement.

This shouldn't be hard", you think to yourself. You want to buy a computer, so you figure the Internet is the best place to look. You get on Alta Vista, and type "computers" in the text box. It comes back and tells you that it has found about 1 million pages matching your query terms. You try another tactic - you type in "I want to buy a computer". Only 400,000 pages this...

There are two ways a user talks to a web database - through a type-in box and by selecting choices from a directory structure. This section will examine the more common of the two, the search engine, and will help you to learn the differences between search engines (because, just as the databases are different, so are the search engines) and how to become an effective searcher.

A "pick list", or set of directories and subdirectories used to organize the surrogates, is used by Yahoo, Magellan, and other search engines. These have the advantage of pre-collecting a set of resources about a topic, so if a topic used as a directory heading matches your search topic, these are a quickest and most reliable way to find a starting point for your information.

Search engines compile their databases by employing "spiders" or "robots" ("bots") to crawl through web space from link to link, identifying and perusing pages. Sites with no links to other pages may be missed by spiders altogether. Once the spiders get to a web site, they typically index most of the words on the publicly available pages at the site. Web page owners...

Metasearch engines do not crawl the web compiling their own searchable databases. Instead, they search the databases of multiple sets of individual search engines simultaneously, from a single site and using the same interface. Metasearchers provide a quick way of finding out which engines are retrieving the best results for you in your search.

Subject directories, unlike search engines, are created and maintained by human editors, not electronic spiders or robots. The editors review and select sites for inclusion in their directories on the basis of previously determined selection criteria. The resources they list are usually annotated. Directories tend to be smaller than search engine databases, typically indexing only the home page or...

There are two kinds of gateways: library gateways and portals. (See Lesson 3 for a discussion of portals.) Library gateways are collections of databases and informational sites, arranged by subject, that have been assembled, reviewed and recommended by specialists, usually librarians. These gateway collections support research and reference needs by identifying and pointing to recommended,...

Search marketing or search engine marketing (SEM) is all about harnessing the search engines for marketing purposes. For some, it's an obvious decision whether or not to use search marketing. Others need a little more convincing. But first, let's understand how it works...

There is only so much space on the first page of major search engines for advertising; up to around 20 results for every search to be exact. Competition for top search rankings is driving up the cost for advertisers. Where and when will alternatives emerge to compete with the big three; Google, Yahoo and MSN?

Google, one of the most powerful search engines on the planet, has turned into a household name. Founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin,this site covers eight billion web pages, which make it the largest search engine ever.

A properly designed website will not have to work much about its search engine optimization. The key thus is to follow the principles and design an ideal website. The textual element of the website should be well separated from the design elements. Information may be what lures visitors to the website, but the design and layout is what makes them stay. A poor and hard-to-ude website design may...

In this article, I am going to discuss the issue related to Google sitelinks. So the article is going to be little technical. Before three years, webmasters noted that Google has started showing “sub topic” or “sub category” links within the results. Now Google has finally implemented the change and the name given to that service is “SiteLinks”. Sitelinks are the additional links that appear...

Backlinks are a highly important and necessary part of any successful website. Backlinks are essential for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because they help to judge the popularity and importance of the website based on their backlinks to other sites. That is the main reason there are so many directories online. One well known directory is the Canadian Business Directory. Ca that is well known...

There are a few marketing tricks you can use to begin building traffic to your website. If you are an affiliate marketer, or network marketer, this method will bring you target traffic by using article submission. The first thing to remember is that you should be the person writing your articles if you want this trick to work for free. You do not have to be a great writer at all. If this seems too...