Search engines basically cater to two audiences - webmasters and web searchers. Although there is an obvious overlap between two groups, latter dominates in numbers and most search engines bend over backwards to keep web searchers happy by continually tweaking search result algorithms. Webmasters, on other hand, are more or less left to fend for themselves.

ExactSeek was founded 2 years ago on premise that webmasters/ site owners are driving force on Web - not in numbers, but in terms of ideas, development, enthusiasm and innovation. The goal for ExactSeek, then and now, was to build a major engine that catered to this audience and web searchers more or less equally. Part 1 of this article deals with ExactSeek's focus on webmasters.

FREE SITE LISTINGS

ExactSeek's belief in importance of webmaster audience to search engine growth and traffic resulted in rapid introduction of three types of free site listings, each geared to helping webmasters give their websites maximum exposure within search engine.

Here's a short explanation of each:

Standard listings: As name implies, this site listing is just a basic website listing in ExactSeek database, comprised of Site Name (taken from Title tag), description (taken from Meta Description tag) and Site Link (the website URL).

These basic listings show up numbered 1 to 10, etc. in ExactSeek's search result pages. Any webmaster can obtain a Standard Listing simply by filling out form at: http://www.exactseek.com/add.html

Enhanced listings: Not strictly a website listing - really more of an enhancement to standard website listing. In brief, an enhanced listing consists of a small icon residing next to a website's standard listing which when clicked opens a 150x150 javascript window with additional information about that website. The cool thing about enhanced listing is that webmasters can add up to 800 characters of text or HTML code to content of window, allowing them to:

- Embed audio, video or Flash. - Include logo, product or service images. - Include links to secondary site pages. - Use font enhancements (size, color, style). - Include more detailed information about their websites.

Simple examples can be seen at:

http://www.exactseek.com/enhanced.html

Priority listings: Introduced for those webmasters who wanted something in return for adding an ExactSeek search form to their websites. These listings appear in first 10 to 100 ExactSeek search results, highlighted against a light blue background. Visit link below to see an actual example:

http://exactseek.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?term=perl

Obtaining a priority listing is a simple 3 step process outlined at: http://www.exactseek.com/add_priority.html

History

In Internet's Middle Ages - eight to ten years back, everything related to Web was extremely expensive, from Internet access to web design and programming to hosting, and creative folks built their first websites mostly from a perspective of future opportunities. The then start-ups tried to attract their audiences by interesting information and colorful pictures in hopes that visitors will find their web pages somehow, through ads or otherwise, and remember useful Internet address (URL) or add it to favorites in order to come back again and again.

But times have changed. Now, with almost forty million of active domains and twenty million of websites, archaic approach to entering any online market doesn't work. It's no longer enough to have nice graphics and useful information on web pages and drive some additional traffic to a site via banner ads. To be visible, websites have to compete fiercely for search traffic. Those players on Web who don't understand new harsh realities are just losing their money and online niches to rivals.

Power of Search

Today's Internet users aren't inclined to compile lists of useful web addresses and then copy and paste or type in domain names like "www.your-greatest-website.com." Of course, an average web surfer has a number of pages bookmarked in browser, but when it comes to searching Web for information, products or services, user goes to a search site and type relevant words or phrases in a search box. What would you do if you needed, for example, a vacuum cleaner or latest news on a Cabinet reshuffle in Myanmar? Yes, you visit your favorite search site and type in your key search terms there, say, "vacuum cleaner" or "cabinet reshuffle myanmar." The search site will display you its search result page or pages with many links to information you need. It's simple and effective.

The search sites have become an integrated part of overall Internet industry and can be classified into two major groups: search engines and directories. The search engines use special programs; so-called spiders or crawlers travel web, scan web pages and include them in search engine databases. Contrary to search engines that store information about web pages, Internet directories are supported manually by human editors, have no automated programs and list websites by categories. Google, MSN, AltaVista, AOL and AlltheWeb are most popular search engines on a global scale. Yahoo! and DMOZ (ODP) are particularly noteworthy among global directories. Yandex and Rambler - each has a search engine and a directory - have actually captured a search market in Russia and other CIS countries despite they now face tough competition from Google. There are local search sites at deeper regional level as well. Ukraine, for example, has UaPortal.com.ua and Bigmir.net (directories), and META.ua and Sova.com.ua (search engines) that are besieged by competition from likes of Google, Yandex and Rambler.

Whatever marketing researches you do, whatever sophisticated web design and programming technologies you apply and whatever great website you launch, your web project will always remain hidden from your target audiences unless your web pages get into search engine databases and are listed among first 30 search results. Every online business comes to this conclusion sooner or later. Sometimes it happens too late when designers has already sucked in all website budget and sacrificed potential search traffic for expensive and unnecessary graphics or codes.

Lost in Design