Search engines have the main purpose to index thousands of
millions of web pages. Once you look for a word or a phrase,
the search engine scans automatically the entire database
where it has the stored pages indexed and it returns to you
as a result a list containing the most relevant results for
that search.
The only criteria are the number of pages found and their
relevance depend on are the capabilities of the used search
engine.Google has become the largest search engine at present
but there is a constant battle between companies to be at
the forefront .
Search engines appeared somewhere in the early 90’s
when Alan Emtage, a student at the McGill University in Montreal
created the first search engine tool. It was called Archie.
Its purpose was to search through the information available
on the FTP servers. The files on these servers were available
for anyone, but one couldn’t use them unless knowing
the exact address of the server and of the file.
Archie looked through this database and gathered lists of
files for each server. It was used by people to match phrases
and characters in order to take them to the server address
the file they were looking for was on.
Its creation was the first step in the search engine rally
that is going on now. As the public grew more and more aware
of the existence of the internet, the need for a search tool
became visible.
So, first there were some software robots, using the concept
of spidering to index the web, following links from one site
to the other and saving the text from all visited websites
in a database.
Between 1994 and 1995 three important search engines appeared:
Lycos, WebCrawler and AltaVista. At about the same time Yahoo!
appeared but Yahoo! is not a search engine. Yes, it has a
search engine function, but yahoo is firstly a directory
of data and articles, providing different services as email
and hosting. Recently yahoo has signed contracts with other
search engines as Google for both of them to provide more
search results.
Today search engines are in a continuous competition. There
are thousands of search engines, but just a few big ones.
This small group of top search engines is responsible for
more than 90% of online searches.
However, if search engines are free and they can be used
by everyone what keeps them financially alive? The answer
to the question is very simple: advertising and traffic.
The more visits they have, the bigger the traffic then the
more money they can make providing AD space.
Search engines are competing to develop the best formulas
and algorithms to evaluate the web pages accordingly to the
keywords provided.
If someone is looking for a top position in search engines,
then he has to be sure that his site is projected in such
a way that search engines would find it easily, being relevant
for the keywords and phrases the owner wants it to be found
by.
SEO tools
Search Engine optimization is of two kinds, Organic and
Mechanical. Organic SEO depends on manual or natural ways
of optimizing a website and takes more time resulting in
long lasting results. Mechanical SEO use software i.e. seo
tools to optimize a website. It takes less time but results
have a shorter shelf life.
SEO tools are numerous. They are available for keyword verification
checking and suggestions, link popularity checks, meta tag
optimization, search saturation checking, back link building,
search engine ranking etc.
The seo tools are being extensively used today to optimize
websites. In the fiercely competitive industries it is very
important to be on top of Google, Yahoo or any other search
engine rankings to tap targeted audiences. This greatly helps
to sustain, grow and expand your business through your website.
Each category of seo tools in turn has a number of software
developed by different companies. It is relevant to know
which are good before you embark upon using one. Almost all
of them have demo versions available for free download. You
can always try them out before narrowing your options and
buying the best. Remember, SEO tools need to be used carefully
or the search engines can black list you.
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