Search engines are how individuals on the internet find your website. There will undoubtedly be thousands of websites similar to yours on the internet. Unfortunately the average internet user will only look at the top thirty results from a search out of the millions of potential pages.

Search engines have an equally difficult job -  searching through millions of sites to help people find what they are looking for. Imagine if you went to a library and said the word "ship" to the librarian.  The librarian would respond, "What do you mean by 'ship'?  Are you looking for a book about a nautical ship?  How about a space ship?  Perhaps your looking for information on how to ship something?  I'm going to need more information."  Unfortunately websites are often given "ship" and have to make assumptions about what you are looking for.

Other common problems -
If you are a local general contractor in New Jersey, having internet traffic from California does you little good.  On the other hand, if you are a retailer that ships many of your products, your search engine strategy will be less specific to location and more specific toward cliental.  Search engine companies may promise traffic for a fee, but it is it the kind that will benefit your business?

The way a website is designed allows the search engine to accurately categorize your website and therefore drive the right kind of traffic to it.  The majority of website design companies create sites to look attractive, but not with search engines in mind. Why?  Because this requires every site be analyzed, custom built, and painstakingly submitted to search engines by hand.  Few designers have the expertise or are willing to make the extra effort to ensure the sites search engine success.  Our website design, however, follows the latest recommendations and techniques for search engines, ensuring that if someone is looking for a business like yours, your site will be at the top of the list.

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There are literally thousands of search engines on the internet and how they specifically work are closely guarded secrets.  There are some basic principles, however, of how search engines work.

Crawler-Based Search Engines

Crawler-based search engines, such as Google, create their listings automatically. They "crawl" or "spider" the web, then people search through what they have found.  If you change your web pages, crawler-based search engines eventually find these changes, and that can affect how you are listed. Page titles, body copy and other elements all play a role.

Human-Powered Directories

"Hybrid Search Engines" Or Mixed Results

In the web's early days, it used to be that a search engine either presented crawler-based results or human-powered listings. Today, it extremely common for both types of results to be presented. Usually, a hybrid search engine will favor one type of listings over another. For example, MSN Search is more likely to present human-powered listings from LookSmart. However, it does also present crawler-based results (as provided by Inktomi), especially for more obscure queries.

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Top 12 search engines on the internet: