Search Engine Report

How does a search engine work?

First of all, there are two different types of search engines. There are human-powered directories and crawler based search engines. Human-powered directories use human power to make decisions on web site rankings. A crawler based search engine such as Yahoo or Bing uses automated methods to generate search listings. In this report I will focus on crawler based search engines.

A crawler based search engine is made up of three main parts. The first part is the web crawler or spider. A spider is an automated program that goes out and reads web sites. The spider goes out and records information from a web page and then follows the links on that page to other pages on that site. The second part is that an index or catalog is created from the data that the spider has gathered. The third part is where search engine software organizes the search listings by finding matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes to be most relevant. Relevancy is based on predefined algorithms established by the search provider. The algorithms are closely guarded secrets, but all major search search engines follow some general guidelines. One of the main rules about ranking is key word location and frequency. If a key word is listed high on a web page or listed often the web page would tend to be ranked higher in a query.

Why do different search engines give different ranking to websites for the same search phrase?

There can be numerous explanations for this. Here are a few reasons. Search engines use different algorithms to generate their rankings. Search engines run at different times. For instance, recent updates to a web page may not have been captured by a spider because the spider has not yet run to capture the change. No search engines have the exact same set of pages to search through; some search engines index more web pages than others.

What is a <meta> tag?

A meta tag is an HTML or xHTML tag that can exist inside a header tag of web page. The meta tag can contain metadata information about the web page. Metadata is information about data. Meta tag elements are most often used to help search engines categorize the web pages correctly. Proper use of keywords in meta tags on a page may help improve the page's search engine rankings.

What are other methods of making a web site more visible on the web?

Use keywords in your title.
Use keywords in your headers.
Include your keywords in your content and keep your page content as specific and focused on your topic as possible.
Use keywords in an images's alt parameter where applicable.
Submit your URL to various search engines.
Create a site map with links to all your important pages and submit the site map to search engines.
Add links to your site. Ask sites with similar content to link to your site. Add their links to your site.
Write pages that are easy to index.
Add your web site to your e-mail signature, business card and other promotional material.

Seek and you shall find.

Listed below are three sites that have similar goals and audiences to our team website, ancestrypic.com. Included on the table is keyword information that will impact their rankings in search engines.

URL	Words used in page titles and heading	Words used in Description meta tags	Words used in Keyword meta tags
http://www.agallery.com/index.html	Gallery Fine Photography	Founded in 1973, and proudly featuring an inventory of over 5,000 original photographs spanning the history of photography from its origins to the present day, A Gallery for Fine Photography is one of the largest and most respected photographygalleries in the United States	Keith Carter A Certain Alchemy, vintage photography, photos, New Orleans, Royal Street, antiques, collectibles, 19th century photography, daguerreotype, ambrotype, tintype, silver gelatin, dye transfer, Edward S. Curtis, North American Indians, orotones, Cartier-Bresson, Karsh, Gruen, Curtis, Jan Saudek, Sandy Skoglund, Elliott Erwitt, Diane Arbus, Joshua Mann Pailet, Helmut Newton, SUMO, June Newton, Newton, sumo
http://www.fritzantiques.com/	Kathy's Antique Photography, Early Photography, Vintage Photography, Old Photographs,	Kathy's Antique Photography - antique photography, early photography, vintage photography, old photographs - fritzantiques.com	antique photography, early photography, vintage photography, old photographs, antique photos, search engines, google, kathy's antique photography, yahoo, msn, kathys antique photography, antique photography, antique photos, alternative energy, old photos, old photographs, early photography, vintage photography, vintage photos, google, 19th century photography, 20th century photography, google.com, yahoo.com, alternative energy, reforestation, conservation, conservation efforts, wildlife food, wildlife, saving wildlife, nesting boxes, re-forestation, conservation project, conservation efforts, bing.com
http://www.victoriana.com/antique-marketplace/Photographs/	Antique Photographs	Find antique photographs such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, stereoviews and CDVs	antique photographs, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, stereoviews, CDV, 19th century embroidery, 19th century needlework, 19th century sampler, samplers, Antique fashions, antique clothing, vintage clothing, antique dresses, corsets, antique corsets, Civil War clothing, antiques, photographs, cdv, antiques collectibles, antiques and collectibles, antique lace, antique linens, collectible antiques, collectibles and antiques

Based on this research appropriate use of titles and headings might include: antique photographs, antique pictures, Civil War, antique clothing, old photographs, old photos, vintage photographs, early photographs, 19th century photographs. The same words could be used in the keyword meta tags.

Based on my research, appropiate ways of publicizing our team site could include submitting the web site URL to search engines. Submitting site maps to the search engines. Have business cards printed with the web site URL listed.

Here is a sample of what could be our Description and Keyword meta tags:

Here is a sample author tag for the team site: <meta name= "author" content="Steven Ericksen, Joe Colson, Michael Hesler & Ed Einfeld" />