[thelist] RE: keywords and optimization

[Cayley Vos]

The best tool for mac is VSE Be Found - look it up on the engines - google ;)
Personally, I choose to optimize manually, by hand.  Altavista and all the directories require it
anyway. I have used all the programs, including web position, and find them to be a waste of time.
The SEO has to learn
what keywords to target, and then use them wisely in HTML tags: title, body, meta - in that order.

Many search engines have banned webposition from abuse by webmasters - it ties up a lot of bandwidth
doing constant ranking queries.  In my _professional_ opinion, correct use of your keywords with
well written copy, and a fair amount of submission sweat, will get you good listings.  There is no
magic bullet, as in life success comes to those who work.

more info
http://NetPaths.net/searchengines/


an excellent pay for placement article:
--
Two more portals -- iWon and Canada.com -- have switched over to using paid
placement listings, following a similar move that Go.com made in March.

Previously, iWon had provided access to mixture of search results.
Crawler-based information from Inktomi, human-compiled results from
LookSmart and "popularity" results from Direct Hit were all presented on
its results page. Now searches simply bring up paid listings from GoTo.com,
euphemistically called "Partner Search Results." The switch occurred in
mid-May.

The changeover is sad because iWon had been working to distinguish itself
as a viable search alternative for those dissatisfied with other portals.
Indeed, it has been seeking to trademark the motto "Best Search On The
Web." Perhaps that application should now be amended to, "Best Search On
The Web, Which You Can Also Find At GoTo Or Many Of GoTo's Partners."

iWon says that the move is temporary, part of its regular testing to see
what users like and dislike.

"From time to time, we change around the format of sections of the site and
then survey the users to get their feedback. This is what you are currently
seeing with our search. The users have given us some great feedback over
the past couple of weeks, and we are going to be reformatting the section
again. It will probably be more like the search format we used to have,"
said Erica Bates, director of public relations for iWon.

Personally, I suspect that if many users don't have a problem with the
current results, then the revenue-generating format will likely stay.
That's also fine, if you are a current iWon user and like what you are
getting. However, if you feel the quality of results has dropped over the
past weeks, the switch to paid placement results is probably to blame.
Register your dissatisfaction with iWon or seek another search engine.

Information from iWon's other search partners does remain available, but
users have to go out of their way to reach these results. Instead, if you
want access to LookSmart and Inktomi information, consider another look at
the just improved MSN Search.

By the way, the current changeover also means iWon loses the key
distinction it offered over other search sites. Previously, any link you
selected from the main search results gave you points for winning the
prizes iWon offers. However, iWon no longer does this.

If the change at iWon is sad, the switch Canada.com has made is absurd.
Previously, Canada.com depended primarily on crawler-based results from
Inktomi. It also had an option that allowed you to narrow the results so
that they were more oriented toward Canadian web sites.

In mid-May, Canada.com began using meta search results from Dogpile. As
Dogpile makes heavy use of paid listing search engines, this has
essentially turned Canada.com into a paid placement service. Of the 35
listings you'll receive on the first page of Canada.com's results, 30 of
them -- 86 percent -- are paid listings.

In addition, there's no ability to narrow listings to Canadian-specific
sites. Regionalization options aren't always perfect, but they are nice to
have, especially when doing a search for something that isn't inherently
regional.

For instance, I tried a search for "auto insurance" at Canada.com. The
results that came back seemed oriented towards those seeking auto insurance
in the United States. That's not surprising, given that the vast majority
of advertisers on the paid placement services that Dogpile lists are based
in the United States.

Ideally, an option to limit results to Canadian information would get me
sites specific to Canadian auto insurance. Google just launched a new
Canadian edition, and it has such a limiting option next to the search box,
on its home page. Unfortunately, the results there didn't feel any more
Canadian. Nor did the results from AOL Search Canada. At Excite Canada, it
failed to filter to Canadian web sites even though I selected the option on
its home page. Instead, I had to choose the "Canadian Sites" link at the
top of the results page -- nor were the results that impressive.

I did find the listings at AltaVista Canada, MSN Search Canada and Yahoo
Canada to be more hopeful. They certainly felt better than those at
Canada.com, so consider these as alternative options. However, even the
other Canadian search engines I named should be considered. After all, I
only tried one test query. You might find them to be much better for other
searches. At the very least, they are all making more of an effort to
present Canadian results than Canada.com. You'll find links to all of these
services below.
- taken from

http://searchenginewatch.com/



Cayley Vos, Principal

360.714.8395 office
360.223.7799 cell

http://NetPaths.net
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