Search Engine Optimization Book

SEO BOOK

Search Engines

The following search engines are reviewed in order of search distribution from the best of my knowledge.

Some of the first listed search engines may appear to have more content and more information than the later listed search engines. The reasons that the top couple search engines have much more data listed in their sections is that much of the data from one section would carry over to the next section.

The order of these listings has nothing to do with the relevancy or quality of the search results. They all provide quality results using similar algorithms.

Google

Google Search Distribution:

Currently Google is powering

around 50% of US search

(Google, AOL, Earthlink, Go, Netscape, and many others). More worldwide search statistics

are available here

.

Google shows up to 10 AdWords ads on their search results, but they keep them separate from the regular (or organic) listings. There is no direct way to pay Google money to list in their organic search results.

So how does Google work.

Google takes an empirical view of the linking structure of the web and rates pages on a logarithmic scale based on what pages link to them. The Google Toolbar provides a 0 to 10 scale to mimic the link popularity of listed sites. This helps you determine how important Google thinks a site is.

Many webmasters hear a statement like this and want to run and exchange as many links with as many people as they can. This is a form of spam which search engines know all too well.

Sometimes these rings gain popularity, but once they are found out they may get penalized and delisted.

When you link to into the wrong circles you run the risk of being associated with them.

It is important to note that this PageRank value is only one component of the Google search engine algorithm. Many times a PR 4 site will list above a PR 6 site because it was optimized better and has a well defined descriptive inbound link profile (which means better keyword rich links from more sites and more related sites).

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