What a search engine is

You probably already know that search engines are web sites with databases which people use in order to search for web pages which interest them.   They include Google, Yahoo! and MSN - and directories such as Dmoz Open Directory, which you may never have heard of but which feeds its information to hundreds of other search engines.  Some web sites are almost invisible to the search engines, generally because their designers have not understood the different search engines’ requirements.

Knowing which are the best search engines for your site

We keep an up-to-date list of the top search engines, and can advise on the ones most appropriate for your purposes.  Most of the search engines are general in their purpose, but some engines exist for specialist interests, such as education or medicine.  We can research these for you and advise you as to which are appropriate for your site.  We also keep tabs on which are, at any time, the most popularly used search engines, especially by UK users.

Knowing how different search engines rate sites

Different search engines index and categorise web pages by any of four different methods.  Many people know about search engines which use meta tags or a directory structure;  fewer know about those which use external links or, crucially, those which scan the text on your pages for key words and allocate weightings to them.  When we write your web site, we will ensure that it includes all the information which all the major search engines require.

How to submit to search engines

When a web site is complete, it must be submitted to the search engines.  There are some web sites which will sell you a search engine submission service to hundreds of engines, using a script (a sort of computer program).  We do not consider that this method is as effective as manual submission, since many of the top search engines regularly change their requirements just to avoid this sort of automated submission.

You don’t have to undertake the tedious task of manual submission to search engines - we will do it for you.  Two rounds of submissions are included in your design fee, and if your site is regularly updated we can include re-submissions in your annual maintenance.

Some search engines now offer a paid route to ranking on their lists.  If you can afford it, this is a guarantee of an early appearance for your site (it can take weeks for a search engine submission to be actioned) but it does not guarantee top rankings - for that, the site must still be designed with search engine rankings in mind from the very start.