How do the different search (se) engines rank websites in their searches? - Marquee advertising

There are hundreds of search (se) engines, but only 3 in the UK which you need to be concerned about - Google, Yahoo and MSN. Google is the complex one, so lets start with MSN.....

MSN: Owned by Microsoft. This is the baby, having only been launched in late 2004 (before that MSN used results from other engines). MSN is probably the easiest search (se) engine to get good listing results. MSN tends to focus more on the keyword density of the website and the keyword meta tags. Interestingly, links are not as important and you can find many examples of high listing sites with almost no links. Links will no doubt become more important over time.

Good results with MSN may not mean large numbers of visitors to your site as it has yet to establish itself as a market leader. MSN is likely to be the first major search (se) engine to list a new site; often with good results - however, you still need to follow our advice above to maintain a good position in the search results over the long term.

Update November 2006: MSN is now called "Live" search.

Yahoo!: has been around for a long time. Yahoo represents the middle ground where both good keyword optimisation and a large number of quality links are important for good results. Personally Yahoo is our favourite and we think this search (se) engine returns the most relevant results for any given search term. Good results with Yahoo will noticeably increase your visitors to your site.

Yahoo is becoming harder to list new sites and there are no doubt some 'filters' for brand new sites. Typically, Yahoo will include a new site in the search results several weeks or months after your site has been indexed. This can be frustrating if you know Yahoo indexed your pages 6 weeks ago and you still do not appear in any search results - be patient! A new site could drop in and out of the results for a month or so and your results position will gradually improve over time if you follow our advice above. Allow 5 months to a year for a new site to obtain the best natural search results. If you need visitors quicker try paid advertising (pay per click) with Yahoo for 'instant' visitors or sign up for the Yahoo directory for £299 a year (this may speed up your results but there is no guarantee).

Yahoo can be slow to index all pages in a website. We have noticed during 2006 that it can take up to 8 months to get around to indexing all the pages; especially for a large site. During that period the Yahoo will typically point searchers to the home page for any given search term, often with poor results. We suspect this is a form of filter to tackle the growing problem of massive sites with computer generated spam pages.

Google: The undisputed market leader with some analysts saying Google represents over 50% of all World searches. Google gives more importance to links than the others and there are many examples of sites with appalling 'on site' keyword optimisation which do very well (We have seen recent evidence of this changing). In order to succeed with Google you need tons of links from other relevant sites with keyword rich anchor text. Without turning this tutorial into a sales pitch, this directory is the perfect vehicle for advertising and links to do well in Google. In fact this directory has been designed to assist marquee websites achieve good natural results with Google as well as providing direct links to your own website from our directory listings. Google says they use over 100 criteria to measure the importance of a website and to rank that site within their natural search results, but links have been the main criteria since Google was established and this has set them apart from other search (se) engines in the past. Google is quite quick to index and include new sites in the search results; however, there is a sting in the tail - you may drop back down the results as quickly as you appeared! It is a well known fact that new sites are filtered in the search results and you should allow 6 months to a year to obtain good natural results with Google. Again follow our advice above or try pay per click advertising for 'instant' visitors.

Update February 2007: According to the latest industry research in the months leading up to February 2007 the percentage share of UK searches are as follows:

Google 77% | Yahoo 8% | MSN 5% | Ask 5% | Others 5%

Back to marquee advertising page 1

Please click on these links for more information on how we can assist with your marquee advertising website design or website optimisation, or to return to the Marquee-Hire.Info advertising page please click here.