Q1. The Home Page of your web site consists mainly of: a) Graphics b) Text c) A mixture of text and graphics d) Flash files

Q2. Within HTML code, does your site use: a) A Title Tag only b) A Title Tag plus a META description tag c) A Title Tag, plus META description and keyword tags d) You don’t know

Q3. The content of your site includes: a) Text based on internal sales copy b) Text containing keywords and phrases you think are relevant c) Text containing keywords and phrases based on search engine research d) Little or not text

Q4. The images used throughout your site: a) Use keyword-filled ALT IMG tags b) Don’t use ALT IMG tags at all c) Use ALT IMG tags that don’t contain keywords d) You don’t know

Q5. Your Web Site was submitted to how many engines?: a) The top 10 search engines & directories b) The top 10, plus regional engines in your target markets c) None - don’t search engines find sites automatically? d) You don’t know

Q6. The links to internal pages within your web site are: a) Graphic buttons b) Text links c) Graphical text links d) Keyword-filled text links

Q7. Your web page URL’s are mainly: a) Static URL’s (consisting of .htm or .html extensions) b) Symbol-free dynamic URL’s (e.g. .cfm, .jsp, .asp extensions) c) Symbol-filled dynamic URL’s (e.g. containing symbols such as '?') d) You don’t know

Q8. You track following to your site: a) Number of visitors only b) What search engines they came from c) What search terms they used to find you d) All of above

Q9. You track your ranking in search engines by: a) Conducting manual searches occasionally b) Receiving detailed ranking reports occasionally (less than once a month) c) Receiving detailed ranking reports regularly (once a month or more often) d) You don’t track your rankings

Q10. What is your site’s link popularity like? : a) There are less than 10 external sites linking to yours b) There are 10-50 external sites linking to yours c) There are over 50 external sites linking to yours d) You don’t track your link popularity

Q11.When your search engine rankings slide, you: a) Don’t notice b) Re-submit your site to all engines c) Re-submit your site only to engines where rankings have dropped d) Wait for engines to re-index your site automatically

1. Increase in Pay For Performance (PFP) Options - when you consider that a year ago there were only a couple of search engines offering PFP options, you realize how important PFP has now become (by PFP I mean Pay-Per-Click options, paid inclusion, sponsored listings and keyword buys). All most important search engines now offer some type of PFP option and every SEO campaign should have some PFP components for best results.

I see this trend increasing, with major engines and directories expanding on range of PFP options they provide, whether in-house (such as Looksmart’s new LookListings range for small business), or outsourced (such as Yahoo’s recent partnering with Overture). I also see more traditional SEO’s embracing PFP for first time in 2002, as they realize benefits and results achievable for their clients and stop fretting over perceived loss of 'purity' of search results.

2. Increase in Paid Submissions - Looking back to November 2000, Looksmart was only one of major engines and directories to demand payment to consider a site for submission to their index. Yahoo introduced submission fees for commercial sites a month later. Both directories hiked up their price to USD 299 during this year, setting a new standard for industry and justifying value of their service via market share (Yahoo) and formation of new partnerships with other search players (Looksmart).

I would hope that Paid Submission fees remain static for 2002, at least for Yahoo and Looksmart. However I believe we’ll see other engines and directories introduce a fee for submission to their commercial categories. I think Google could be first of these.

3. Crackdown on Spammers - In their quest for relevant results, Google recently introduced Report a Spammer page, (http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html) as well as a beta page rating tool within their latest Toolbar (http:/ oolbar.google.com/go?version=beta&hl=en) that enables people to rate quality of sites they find in Google’s index. As well as enabling people to vote for sites they find providing quality content, this rating tool gives people opportunity to report sites using unacceptable spamdexing methods to try and obtain a high search ranking.