By Andrea
Greene, Internet Marketing Specialist
KEEPING SCORE—WHICH
SEARCH ENGINES ARE MOST POPULAR?
Here is the most recent breakdown of "search engine share" from
comScore showing the most popular search engine networks ranked by most
searches performed.
36.8% for Google
26.6% for Yahoo, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and Overture.com
14.5% for MSN
12.8% for AOL, Netscape and other Time Warner sites
4.3% for Excite, iWon, MyWay, and MyWebSearch
1.8% for Ask Jeeves and Teoma
1.3% for InfoSpace, Dogpile, and WebCrawler
0.8% for Lycos and HotBot
1.1% for Others
IS IT TIME TO BAG TAGS?
We are starting to see a decrease in the weight search engines place on
title and meta tags; but don't write off your SEO consultant just yet. Many
search engines still use some or all of your tags for determining rank or
displaying results.
A page's title tag is
critical because it is the first text displayed in the search results page of
a search engine. It should be written to attract your target audience and
include the most important keyword phrase. Meta description and keyword tags
are also useful, although not as influential to search engine rankings as they
once were. Many search engines including Google still do display your meta
description tags on their search results page, directly under the page title.
Meta tags can be an important complement to your paid search strategy, or the
only form of search promotion for a site that doesn't participate in paid
campaigns—and there is no cost to maintain them once created.
MSN SEARCH BULKS UP
Microsoft has recently launched the beta (testing) version of its new
search engine technology for MSN at http://beta.search.msn.com. MSN plans to
replace its current Yahoo results with the new Microsoft search results by
January. The new search results will feature more recently indexed pages,
localized results, content from Encarta, and search of the files on your hard
drive—no dramatic departure from what Yahoo and Google already offer, just
more independent. MSN plans to retain its right column of Sponsored Sites from
Overture paid keyword campaigns and replace the top spots with its own
exclusive advertising program starting at $75,000 per year. Any takers?
With new competition entering
the market, you can be sure the search engines are working hard to keep up—and
so are we. We are watching the developments at MSN to ensure your advertising
message reaches the most relevant Internet users, regardless of which search
engine they are using.
Contact Dynamics Online
to review your standing in search engines.
