Common Myths About Search Engines

As a Web developer you've probably heard (or wondered about) some of the following myths regarding search engines. Most of them contain a grain of truth, but have become outdated as search engine technology has evolved dramatically over the past two to three years. They're described here primarily to save you extra, unnecessary work- because doing any of these things will not only not help your site much but may actually harm your rankings with search engines.

Myth #1: You need to "submit" your pages to search engines.

You can submit your URL to search engines rather than waiting for search spiders to find you. However, search spiders will ultimately find and index your site regardless of whether you submit pages or not. And in most cases, the search spiders will be faster.

Directory sites such as Yahoo!, Open Directory Project, and LookSmart do accept submissions and are maintained by human editors rather than automated search spiders. To be listed in these or other directories, you must submit your URL and wait for the indexing to take place. Don't submit the same URL multiple times, and try to select the most appropriate category possible.

Myth #2: You need to be indexed in every search engine that exists.

There are literally hundreds of search engines in existence, and web developers are often deluged with offers from third-party vendors to get their site added to all of them.

In fact, fewer than 10 search engines that comprise more than 80% of all queries on the Web. These are the ones you should focus on, unless there's a "niche" search application that's relevant to the content of your site.

Top Search Engines (from SearchEngineWatch.com)

Google
Yahoo
Search.MSN
AltaVista
Lycos
Excite
Ask
Mining Co./About
GoTo (now Overture)
Netscape Directory

Myth #3: Using a lot of keywords will improve your site's ranking with search engines.

Some web developers mistakenly load their pages with keyword lists containing dozens of words (often including popular but unrelated words). In fact, keywords are no longer the primary means of assessing a site's relevance, particularly in the major search engines such as Google. Some search engines will filter out pages that appear to be abusing the keyword tag. Others check keywords on a page against the content of that page and will filter obvious mismatches.

However, the keywords tag is still used by some search engines, and it can be helpful to include a select number of major search terms people use to find your site (check the Search Word report to see what those are). Use a limited set of concise keywords on the main pages of your site, and if possible, order them to create phrases people looking for your site are likely to type into search engines.

Here's an example of a good keyword tag:

<meta name="keywords" content="boston summer classes summerterm boston university term 2002 high school honors programs">

Myth #4: Having a short URL and/or a .com domain name will improve your ranking with search engines.

While short and simple URLs are easier for site visitors to remember than long, complicated ones, the actual address of your site has no bearing on how a search engine will index your site. Similarly, all domain names including .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, and foreign country domains are treated equally.

While the URL itself does not have an effect, some search engines give slightly more weight to pages found in top-level directories than they do to pages in deeper directories. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't have several layers of directories. In fact, your site's directory structure should be defined by your site's navigation structure and how users will navigate your site. But if a primary page is buried down a few directories and you can move it to the top level without causing problems for your users, you should do so.

A related issue is the use of multiple URLs to point to a single site. Some web site developers, believing that this strategy will get more of their pages indexed by search engines, register many URLs and then redirect all of them to the same content.

This technique generally backfires, as search engine technologies have been designed to identify and filter out duplicate URLs. It also backfires when individuals doing searches become annoyed by what initially appear to be different sites turn out to be the same, which wastes visitors' time.

Myth #5: Having meta tags on every page will improve your ranking with search engines.

As mentioned above, keyword and description tags are no longer a primary source of information for search engine indexing. So, while it doesn't hurt to have them, there's no need to include them on every page, just the main "entrance" pages of your site. In fact, you probably don't want to draw traffic to subsections of your site where visitors may feel disoriented and confused, but instead have them reach your "front door" so they can get oriented and have an overview of all the content you provide. When writing your description, do a search for similar sites and look at their descriptions as a guide.

One tag that you should always include on every page, however, is the <title> tag. The title is a source of information for search spiders (and potential visitors using search engines to find your site). In fact, according to some experts, titles are second only to overall page content in search spiders' assessment your site.

Titles should be short, and should contain words that people will look for, rather than marketing slogans or lengthy descriptions of your site or page. Put the most important keywords first, avoid all-uppercase and special characters. Here's an example of a good <title> tag for a site about summer classes at Boston University:

<title>Boston University summer classes</title>

Here's an example of a bad one:

<title>!!!MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SUMMER AT BOSTON UNIVERISTY!!!</title>