Build it and they will come?Making sure your Web site is on the Internet's radar POSTING YOUR WEB SITE TO THE INTERNET IS LIKE DROPPING IT into a black hole: No one will be able to find it unless you include it on a map. The road maps of the Internet are the search engines and directories that help people find sites on the topic they are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. . To attract people to your site, it helps to understand how these search engines and directories work. While they may appear to work the same way, they take different approaches to helping folks find what they are looking for. * Directories. One common way to find sites does not involve a search engine at all, but a directory. Yahoo is probably the best-known Adj. 1. best-known - most familiar or renowned; "Stevenson's best-known work is probably `Treasure Island'" known - apprehended with certainty; "a known quantity"; "the limits of the known world"; "a musician known throughout the world"; "a known criminal" directory service. A directory starts by organizing sites into very broad categories. It then lets users narrow their choices by choosing ever more specific categories. However, the goal of a directory is not to list all Web sites, only the most useful ones. Usefulness is determined by the directory organizer. If your site makes it, great. Otherwise you are out in the cold. To suggest your site to Yahoo visit [less than]www.yahoo.com/info/suggest[greater than]. * Key words. All search engines use key words in one way or another to help users find information. It is critical that you identify the most likely words people will use to search for your site. One way to test key words is to do your own searches and see what kind of results you get. To get an idea of how other people phrase searches, spend a little time watching Metaspy (www. metaspy.com). Metaspy shows real-time 1. real-time - Describes an application which requires a program to respond to stimuli within some small upper limit of response time (typically milli- or microseconds). Process control at a chemical plant is the classic example. searches as they happen. A word of warning, though: About half of all Internet searches are for pornography pornography Depiction of erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement. The word originally signified any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes. . Netscape (1) (Netscape Communications Corporation, Mountain View, CA, www.netscape.com) Part of America Online (AOL), Netscape specializes in Web software, including the Netscape Web browser. users can view real-time searches via Webcrawler (www.webcrawler.com/SearchTicker.html). Once you have your site indexed, be sure to regularly check how well it is coming up in searches. SubmitNow (www.submirnow.com) and Web Site Garage (www.websitegarage.com) can also check your site and make suggestions to enhance its visibility with search engines. They charge about $25 a year. The first place to use your key words is when submitting your site to the various search engines. Keep in mind that, over time, search engines have learned to ignore many overused words and phrases Words and Phrases® A multivolume set of law books published by West Group containing thousands of judicial definitions of words and phrases, arranged alphabetically, from 1658 to the present. . Most search engines today will totally ignore a phrase such as, "a wonderful Web site," so don't waste your time putting it on your home page. Also remember that many search engines will only index what you submit to them as a description. They will not even bother to visit your site. * Spiders. Some search engines operate differently, using what are called spiders. Spiders are programs that crawl To search the Internet for hosts, Web pages or blogs. See crawler. around the Web visiting sites. They create an index of the words found on the site. Often they omit o·mit tr.v. o·mit·ted, o·mit·ting, o·mits 1. To fail to include or mention; leave out: omit a word. 2. a. To pass over; neglect. b. common words like "a," "and," and "of." They may also ignore words like "Web site" or "Internet" that do not help them identify the content of the site. Some spiders index the entire site; others only use the first 200 words on the home page. Some pay special attention to subheads, tagged as [less than]H1[greater than], [less than]H2[greater than], or [less than]H3[greater than] in HTML. However, keep in mind that spiders cannot read words that are graphics. * META tags An HTML tag that identifies the contents of a Web page for the search engines. Meta tags are hidden on the page, but they, as well as all the HTML code on a page, can be viewed by selecting View/Source or View/Page Source from the browser menu. . Many spiders conduct searches by reading a site's META tags: words that are invisible to the Web site visitor but give the site designer an opportunity to describe the site to the spider. Ideally, a Web site would use META tags to help surfers
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* Links. Should you let people link to your site? It will be much more visible if you do. Links are the Internet equivalent of word of mouth. Spiders often look for links as an indication that someone else thinks your site is worthwhile. If you belong to an association, you can usually request a link on the association page. * Traditional media. Remember that the Internet is not the only place people learn about Web sites. Increasingly, traditional media are reporting on useful Web pages. Be sure to promote your site in your newsletters and other marketing materials and to send out press releases when you update your site. Bernie Khoo is director of research and information and webmaster A person responsible for the implementation of a Web site. Webmasters must be proficient in HTML as well as one or more scripting and interface languages such as JavaScript and Perl. They may also have experience with more than one type of Web server. See Web administrator and Webmistress. for the American Association American Association refers to one of the following professional baseball leagues:
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