How do Google, Yahoo and MSN create the description for your web pages in the result page?

First page Google, Yahoo and MSN is great.  However it is also very important that your web pages for list items and show items in the search results display good content so that the web surfer will be interested in clicking on your link.

Auto PlusXP handles this for you as long as you are managing good product name, short descriptions, long descriptions, categories and sub-categories. 

If you want to make sure that your pages are listed with apealing description in the search results, you should use the short and long description fields with the Auto PlusXP system.

Do not forget to routinely manually submit your domain to Google, Yahoo and MSN for inclusion in their indexing.  Here are the addresses:

Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Yahoo -  http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

MSN -    http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Cheers!

No doubt that Google owns (restatement: “monopolizes”) the number one position. But after Yahoo’s second place position, it seems that the rankings start to break down.

According to comScore’s report for August 2007, Google Sites owned 56.5 percent of U.S. searches, Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 23.3 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (11.3 percent), Time Warner (AOL) Networks (4.5 percent) and Ask Network (4.5 percent). Based on a footnote under these statistics, comScore stated that the numbers included partner searches and cross-channel searches yet searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers. You can check out the specific report by visiting: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1745

A few months earlier in April, Hitwise distributed its search engine ranking report with the following results: 65.26 percent of all U.S. searches to Google, Yahoo (20.26 percent); Microsoft including MSN and Live.com (8.46 percent); and Ask.com (3.69 percent). You can find the data at: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3626021

Then Ask.com presented data attributes including: 47% percent of all U.S. searches to Google; Yahoo (28.1 percent); Microsoft (10.6 percent); and Ask.com (11.5 percent). In all cases, the “the search engine’s network of sites were used in the calculations. Without Ask.com’s network of sites their percentage actually drops to 2.10%.

What I find troubling is how Ask.com shows on comScore and Hitwise at or around 4% yet under their own data (that accurately includes their network of sites) as 11.4%. Are comScore and Hitwise leaving out Ask.com’s network in their calculations?

EcoTrek is set to debut what it calls some of the most incredible “mean and green” automotive designs to the public during the 2007 SEMA Show. The company’s vehicle displays will include a 700-hp biodiesel Hummer H2, a Baja-ready biofuel Ford F-250 and other amazing “petrol-free” street and off-road rides. 

All of the EcoTrek vehicles feature accessories made by SEMA members that convey a positive environmental message. For example, the vehicles incorporate tires made by Nitto and Toyo that were produced with recycled rubber at low-emissions American factories, as well as products from ProComp and RealWheels that use a new “eco-considerate” chroming process.

EcoTrek will also construct a mini TV studio to interview SEMA members for TV productions that EcoTrek is compiling for the Discovery Network, National Geographic and several Internet broadcast outlets. EcoTrek will also host media representatives from other print and broadcast sources.

For more information on the 2007 SEMA Show, visit www.SEMAShow.com.

Google accounted for 63.55% of all US searches in the four weeks ended Sept. 29, according to Experian subsidiary Hitwise. Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask.com received 22.55%, 7.83% and 4.32%, respectively.

Also according to Hitwise:

• The remaining 49 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.75% of US searches.
• Ask.com was the only top search engine to gain share from the previous month.
• Google’s share increased 2.62 percentage points from Sept. 2006’s 60.93% share.

Search engines remain the primary way for internet users to navigate to key industry categories: Compared with Sept. 2006, in Sept. 2007 the Travel, Entertainment, and Business and Finance categories received double-digit increases in their share of traffic coming directly from search engines.

About the data: Hitwise uses a network-based approach to internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million internet users (who remain anonymous).

Among core search engines in September 2007, Google Sites remained the top search property with more than 5.3 billion core searches conducted - a 57% share of the search market, according to the monthly comScore qSearch analysis of  the search marketplace.

Along with Google, Yahoo Sites and the Ask Network posted month-over-month share gains, comScore reported.

Core Search Rankings According to comScore’s Sept. US data:

• Behind Google’s 57.0% share, Yahoo Sites ranked second with 23.7%, followed by Microsoft Sites (10.3%), Ask Network (4.7%) and Time Warner Network (4.3%).
• Americans conducted 9.4 billion searches at the core search engines - a 4% seasonal decline from August (Sept. is a shorter month, with a long holiday weekend).
• More than 5.3 billion core searches were conducted at Google Sites during the month, while Yahoo Sites recorded 2.2 billion searches.

Expanded Search Rankings

• Google Sites led the pack with 6.6 billion searches.
• Yahoo Sites ranked second with nearly 2.4 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (999 million), Time Warner Network (843 million) and Fox Interactive Media (492 million).
• Despite the decline in overall search activity in September, Ask.com gained 10% from August levels.

In a recent test, a webmaster optimized his site for a four word keyword. After about three weeks, Yahoo and MSN showed the website in the top 10 results.

Even after several weeks, the same website was nowhere to be seen in Google's top 10 results. The highest result that the website could obtain on Google was position 30:

What does this mean for you?

It looks like Yahoo and MSN are much faster to list new websites in their result pages. The test confirmed that Google has filters for new websites.

For webmasters, the results of this test mean that they have to overcome Google's filters for new sites if they want to have top 10 rankings.

It's difficult for new websites to get high rankings on Google but it is possible. You have to make sure that Google trusts your site.

For searchers, the results of this little test mean that Google might not always have the best search resaults, particularly when it's a search for new content. Yahoo and MSN might be the better choice for some searches.

Is your website still not listed in Google's top 10 for your keyword?

Is your website still not listed in Google's top 10 results although your site is several months old?

Your keywords might be the reason for the problem. If you target very competitive keywords, then it will take much longer until your website is listed in the top 10 rankings.

If you want to get high rankings for competitive keywords, then you need very many good inbound links that contain your keyword in the anchor text.

If you target keywords that consist of one or two words then you might want to reconsider them. One word keywords usually don't lead to sales because these keywords are too general.

Keywords that consist of four words are much more likely to convert to sales than shorter keywords (source: Oneupweb Research).

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Text (such as excessive keywords) can be hidden in several ways, including:

• Using white text on a white background
• Including text behind an image
• Using CSS to hide text
• Setting the font size to 0

Hidden links are links that are intended to be crawled by Googlebot, but are unreadable to humans because:

• The link consists of hidden text (for example, the text color and background color are identical).
• CSS has been used to make tiny hyperlinks, as little as one pixel high.
• The link is hidden in a small character - for example, a hyphen in the middle of a paragraph.

Read the entire Google guideline here.