Use of search engines

Use of search engines and how to get a better Internet listing for your web site.

A. The most popular ones are:
        -Google, MSN search, Teoma, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Altavista.

B. Types of search engines:
        -may be referred to as crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories. These two types gather their listings in radically different ways.

    1. Crawler-Based Search Engines
          - Crawler-based search engines (Google) create their listings automatically by "crawling" or "spidering" the web. Any change in your web pages are rapidly found.

    2.   Human-Powered Directories
         -They depend on humans for its listings. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A search looks for matches only in the descriptions submitted. Changing your web pages has no effect on your listing.

    3. "Hybrid Search Engines" Or Mixed Results
        -Today, it is common for both types of results to be presented. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listings over another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listings from LookSmart. However, it does also present crawler-based results (as provided by Inktomi), especially for more obscure queries.

C. How do you get the best hits:
        -be specific in your title. Short with key words.
        -a 25 word or less description of your entire web site. That description should make use of the two or three key terms.
        -the best way to get listed with Google is to build links to your web site.
        -the location and frequency of keywords on a web page.
        -place key words and phrases in page's HTML title tag and meta tag.

D. HTML title tag and meta tag.

        -information is inserted into the "head" area of your web pages HTML code.
        -the title tag is viewed in the browser while the meta tag is not.
        -meta tags give a browser information about such things as fonts, spacing and content information.

<head>
<title>Cariology, Dental Caries, Cavities, outline-main2</title>
<meta name="description" content="Treating dental caries as an infectious disease: etiology, dental caries treatment, preventive dentistry, caries risk assessment. >
<meta name="keywords" content="Oral Health, oral, oral health, Oral Diseases, Dental Caries, dental, caries, Tooth Decay, decay,
cariology, Cariology, Cavity, cavity, Cavities, Caries Risk Evaluation, Dentistry, dentistry,
dentist, Mutans Streptococci, Streptococcus mutans, Mutans, Lactobacillus, Oral Bacteria, bacteria,
Saliva, saliva, Enamel, Root Surface Caries, Plaque, Plack, plaque, Fluoride, fluoride, Fluor,
fluor, Karies, karies, Zahnschmelz, Zahnkaries, Les dents, Carie Dentaire, Bucco-Dentaire,
Carie Dentaria">
</head>

In the example above, you can see the beginning of the page's "head" area as noted by the HEAD tag -- it ends at the portion shown as /HEAD.

Meta tags go in between the "opening" and "closing" HEAD tags. Shown in the example is a TITLE tag, then a META DESCRIPTION tag, then a META KEYWORDS tag.

If you look at the reverse bar in your browser, then you should see that text being used, similar to this:

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