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"I like the magic wand effect - Jeff fix it - and it all gets done - that's all I care. You are awesome and glad you are taking care of us so well."
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Search Engine Ranking - Then and Now

It used to be that putting the selected search terms for your site into a good set of title and meta tags and high on the front page were enough to guarantee great placement in the search engines. Until a year ago Penweb's clients could usually be found on the first page of most search engines using the chosen search terms, quite often in the first 3 sites.

Sadly this is no longer the case as the search engines have gone through a major transformation from obtaining their revenue from ads on the results pages to charging money for high placement. They also have cut costs by using outside sources for their searches instead of maintaining their own search engines.

Now there are just a few search engines supplying the results for virtually all the search engines. When you search Lycos for a term you'll get the same results as if you'd used Go.com or AOL Search instead. Overture, formerly GoTo.com, in addition to selling their rankings to the highest bidder now places their top 3 bidders for a search term at the top of the page on 5 other search engines. 5 of the other top search engines all now use LookSmart for their search results.

Also, of the 20 sites most visited on the web, 5 of them use MSN for their searches, including 3 of the top 4. This points to the importance of being properly listed on MSN, one of the engines covered under the LookSmart listing. If you're not listed on MSN you need to be, and LookSmart's the only way to get there. Unfortunately Microsoft is making itself an integral part of the internet whether we like it or not.

What it comes down to is there are 2 search engines and one directory that now have to be paid for a new site to rank well, and to improve falling rankings for established sites. LookSmart charges $149 for a listing. Yahoo! is still the most visited site on the web and maintains its own directory, but now charges $299 for listing of new commercial sites, free until a year ago.

Overture is used by 5 of the main search engines for top site ranking, in addition to its own. LookSmart is used by 6. Yahoo! is the most visited directory on the web and now charges for new commercial sites, but it's not used by any of the search engines.

It's fairly straightforward for you to sign up with LookSmart if you know what you're doing. But if you make an error it can be a waste of money. It's easier to get your site listed well at Yahoo! without any handholding. If you'd like me to help you sign up for either of these services please let me know.

Overture is another matter. I don't recommend you do this yourself. It's complicated and takes some knowledge and experience with their system to get good results and not just waste time and money. For this reason Penweb has created a new service, Managed Promo Accounts, for its clients. For more about this, please read New Promotion Services from Penweb

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