Marketing & the Internet, Fall 2003
Assignment #1 - 9/16/03
By Dave Reiss
SearchEngineWatch.com Review
Search Engine Watch is a web site created by Internet consultant
Danny Sullivan. The site "provides information about searching
the web, analysis of the search engine industry and help to site
owners trying to improve their ability to be found in search engines."
The site is broken into related news stories and departments including
Search Engine Submission Tips, Web Searching Tips, Search Engine
Listings, Reviews, Ratings & Tests, Search Engine Resources,
SearchDay, Search Engine Report and a Members Area as well.
Although members ($99/year) are promised in-depth information
about search engine submission, a very detailed guide to search
engines and how to maximize a web site for search engines is freely
available. This guide includes an introduction to submitting to
search engines, budget information, directories (engines created
and maintained by people), crawlers (search engines that automatically
visit web pages to compile listings), and paid listings.
This clearly written resource is a very useful tool for anyone
looking to promote a web site by making it search engine savvy.
As more people and companies produce web pages, much time and
money is spent on the designing of the look, navigation, and the
creation of related content. But for many sites simply adding
metatags (HTML code that lists keywords for search engines) is
simply not enough to be found in the over 3 billion web sites
listed in the search engine Google alone.
The other departments also provide valuable insight into how search
engines work, and how to make them work better for you, whether
you’re a small business looking to promote your web site,
or an individual using search engines for research. There is also
a Search Engine marketplace section for banner ads and links to
web related businesses. Thankfully most ads are static, so the
site is fairly clean and easy to navigate.
SearchEngineWatch.com is part of Internet.com and Earthweb.com,
and the rest of the site is cluttered with links and ads for those
web sites and services. Thankfully these resources are positioned
at the bottom half of the main page. Also, this trend of weaving
company services and advertisers as resources by grouping them
together with related content is often frustrating for users.
SearchEngineWatch.com provides a valuable service for anyone looking
to use Internet search engines as part of their overall marketing
strategy. There is also a free monthly newsletter, Search Engine
report, available by email. However, only members get access to
the web site's premium content, which include specific details
on how each of the different the search engines work from Altavista
to Yahoo. Also included in the membership are more in-depth articles
from the regular free site.