The year 2001 saw dramatic changes in search engine world. Major players have either folded or stopped crawling web, pay-per-click services like Goto/Overture have become much more prominent, and "theme-based indexing" has firmly taken root.Website owners who don't understand what these changes mean for them are missing out on tremendous opportunities to boost their site's search engine traffic.
This little "Search Engine IQ Test" will help you find out how much of what you know about search engines is still true today.
1. Which search engine provides "web page" results for Yahoo? A - Altavista B - Excite C - Google D - FAST/AllTheWeb E - Inktomi
2. Which of these search engines uses "theme-based indexing?" A - Altavista B - Hotbot C - Google D - FAST/AllTheWeb E - All of above
3. Which search engines use META tags in ranking sites? A - Hotbot B - MSN C - Google D - FAST/AllTheWeb E - Altavista
4. Which of following search engines uses its own database of web sites to provide its primary results? A - MSN B - Hotbot C - Lycos D - Excite E - None of above
5. In order to achieve top search engine rankings, you must submit your site to major search engines: A - Once B - Every Day C - Every Week D - Every Month E - Every Year
6. True or False: Ranking in top ten for your favorite search phrase means you'll get lots of traffic. A - True B - False
Answers: 1. C Google now provides "web page" matches for Yahoo!, which accounts for a good percentage of website referrals that come from Yahoo! These used to be provided by Inktomi.
2. E All of these major search engines now uses "themes" to rank and categorize websites. Failing to understand how themes affect ranking is one of biggest reasons websites rank poorly, or fail to get any search engine traffic at all.