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The most important search sites
for your web site success
Many webmasters face the problem that they don't know for
which search engine they should optimize their web sites.
Of course, Google is the most important search engine for
most webmasters. But which other search engines are also important
for your web site success?
Internet analysis service Nielsen/NetRatings
recently released information about the most popular search
sites in the United States, as based on audience reach.
Audience reach is the percentage of US home and work Internet
users estimated to have searched on each site at least once
during the month through a web browser or some other "online"
means.
The results of the study can help you to decide which search
sites could bring more visitors to your site.
The most important US search sites, based on audience
reach
39 percent of active Internet surfers (or 59.3 million unique
viewers) used Google to do searches. The search tools at Yahoo
and MSN attracted approximately 30 percent each. Yahoo had
45.7 million unique users and MSN 44.6 million.
What does this mean to your web site?
It's obviously important to optimize your web pages for Google.
However, the information also shows that you should not rely
solely on Google.
- Although Google might currently bring you the most visitors,
you'll probably get even more visitors if you also optimize
some pages on your web site for Yahoo and MSN. Ask Jeeves
is also becoming more important (see news items below).
- Optimize some of your web pages for Google, optimize some
of your web pages for Yahoo and optimize some of your web
pages for MSN search to make sure that you benefit from
visitors from all major search sites.
- Make sure that your web site has many good incoming links.
Google, Yahoo and MSN Search give good incoming links great
value when determining the ranking of a web site. If your
web site has good incoming links, it will get much better
rankings than a web site without good incoming links.
What about European search sites?
Nielsen/NetRatings also released information about the most
popular European search sites. The results for European search
sites are very similar.
Based on audience reach, the most important European search
sites are Google (47.3%), MSN Search (23.1%), Yahoo Search
(10.8%), AOL Search (5.0%), T-Online Suche (3.7%), Voila Search
(2.9%) and Lycos Europe Search (2.7%).
It doesn't matter if you target the US market or the European
market: don't focus too much on Google. Although it's currently
the major player, you'll get better results if you also take
other major search engines into account.
If you don't know how to optimize your web pages for Google,
Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or MSN Search, read the "Recommended
resources" below.
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