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| Search Engine Spy/MakeMeTop Summer 2004 SEM Newsletter
We research the search engine
marketing world from a UK perspective! |
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| Search Engine Spy/MakeMeTop Summer 2004 SEM Newsletter
We research the search engine
marketing world from a UK perspective! |
|
 |
Search Engine Optimisation Back Issues Sign up to newsletter 1. MSN Starts New Search 2. Ask Jeeves Drops PFI. 3. Mirago Appoints MMT as Feed Reseller. 4. MakeMeTop launches Let's Find Search 5. Paid Inclusion Update 1. MSN Launches New Look. On the 1st July, MSN rolled out a new look to their search engine across the World as a precursor to launching an entirely new search engine towards the end of this year or the beginning of 2005. Sponsored results are still from Overture, but are fewer in number and shaded in a box at the top stating that they are sponsored listings. While the web pages are still from Yahoo Search!, MSN have chosen to drop all pages that are in Yahoo's SiteMatch program and just show pages that have been naturally crawled, deepening the debate about paid inclusion. This has certainly impacted the larger players who have used Trusted Feeds extensively in competitive shopping and travel related areas. All feed listings have disappeared from MSN both in the UK and world-wide! On the other-hand, this has benefited smaller sites who have replaced the big players in the results. It should be noted that MSN have not entirely ruled out paid inclusion in the future and we expect them to roll out their own feed type program in due course. At the same time as producing their new look, MSN has provided a brief peek at their own search engine results from their own crawler and asked for feedback from Webmasters. This technical preview is only visible at certain time and may not always be available and, as it is still an alpha test may bear no resemblance to the results that will appear in the future. It is an interesting insight into developments, however. 2. Ask Jeeves drops all Paid Inclusion. Ask Jeeves is to drop it's paid inclusion program into Teoma (the algorithmic search engine that supplies results to Ask) at the end of September, although sites that pay for pages prior to the end of that month will receive the benefits of paid inclusion (regular spidering and guaranteed inclusion) for a full 12 months from their sign-up date. This leaves, currently, only Yahoo and sites using Yahoo Search results as a full partner as ones that display listings that will include paid inclusion pages out of the 4 major engines. Earlier this year Ask dropped their Trusted Feed program stating they believed they skewed results in favour of people who paid for inclusion. 3. Mirago appoints MakeMeTop as Trusted Feed Provider! While MSN and Ask have stopped using Trusted Feeds, smaller engines are starting to use them to encourage larger companies to enter into a commercial relationship with them. One of these is Mirago, the only genuine crawling search engine with algorithmic search left in the UK! We are one of only 4 authorised feed providers in the World and have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of service received from Mirago who is steadily building up a foundation of ISPs and portals throughout Europe that are showing their results. We are pleased to be one of only a few companies accorded feed provider status! 4. MakeMeTop launches UK Directory and Search Engine Let's Find! Tired of hunting for sites in the UK and Europe via the major search engines, we decided to design our own! Called Let's Find, the search engine and directory is currently in test mode. The current version allows searches to find sites in 3 modes - a standard mode (default), which shows sites with a UK/European bias on results (although it is still a world-wide search) with sponsored results from Overture UK, there is a commercial search mode, which shows only businesses who have paid to appear for specific search terms in the search results for the UK and are there to sell you services and where all search terms they have paid for have been editorially checked by Overture for relevance and accuracy plus their ability to provide these services or products in the UK. Thirdly, we have a reference mode - this is for surfers who do not want to see any commercial results. Currently this shows standard web page listings (with no sponsored results) again with a UK/European bias - but will be changed soon to promote sites that are totally non-commercial in nature. MakeMeTop will also be launching a full directory service to compliment the search engine and will differentiate itself from other directories by being product orientated rather than company specific allowing companies to have multiple listings for their various products and services. More news on this will be released in due course. We would be happy to receive feedback on Let's Find and suggestions on making the results clearer, cleaner and more accurate. 5. Which search engines cost what? With fees changing every month, we are keeping this list updated regularly - so users can see what the latest costs are. As always, not a lot of free submissions out there so don't get taken in by the ever growing list of people offering mass-submissions. They just don't work for any of the main search facilities that drive real traffic. Here are the main search facilities and the basic costs for faster review/inclusion. You can get discounts for more URLs.
It will become harder and harder to get a free listing if you are a business - but make sure, before you pay the engines, that you understand what you are doing to make sure your pages/site appear high up in the listings! These payments specify rapid inclusion - not high rankings. The site/pages still need to be optimised. If you have any further questions about the major search engines - why not ask your questions about this or many other subjects on our free information forums? Our Search Engine Spy site has details of many UK directories and search engines as well as tips on submission and optimisation. We also have many resources which are designed to make your optimisation tasks easier. As always, MakeMeTop is here to help get you seen on the web. If you have any queries, comments or feedback on the information contained in this report, please let us know. It must be stated that all comments and ideas listed in this document come from the editor's research and are solely his opinions! For more information and tips on getting top search engine rankings visit Search Engine World, Pandia and Search Engine Watch or read our tips on designing a search engine friendly page. See other news, views and search engine happenings at sites we find useful at Webmaster World, Pandia, Search Engine Watch and Ihelpyou Forums. A free weekly newsletter is available from High Rankings Advisor and is also well worth the read. MakeMeTop™ is a Trademark of Microchannel Technologies Ltd Tel: +44(0)2885 549936 Fax: +44(0)2885 549943 Copyright 2004 Microchannel Technologies Ltd 214-216 Aghafad Road, Clogher, Co. Tyrone, N. Ireland BT76 0XR | |||||||||
