Step Wise SEO

Yahoo! (yes, the exclamation point is part of its name-a bane to copy editors everywhere) is one of the oldest and still one of the best-known search engines.

Already an established presence when Google was still in diapers, Yahoo! has now settled into the number two spot.

Nevertheless, with its considerable legacy and the muscle to expand its offerings through major corporate purchases (the most recent acquisition of popular social bookmarking site delicious shows that Yahoo! is in tune with trendy new directions in search), Yahoo! is a force to be reckoned with.
URL
Percent of search traffic

Primary results
Organic listings also influenced by
Ways to submit your site
Pay-per-click services
In five words or less
Keep an eye on

www.yahoo.com
29.5% (Source: comScore Media Metrix, February 2006)
Robot crawler
Yahoo! Directory

Paid submittal to Yahoo! Directory, paid inclusion, or wait for the robot to spider you
Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM)
Constant growth means survival.
Local search,Yahoo! Mobile,Web 2.0 search

An important point to keep in mind is that Yahoo!’s market share includes searches in Yahoo! properties and “channels” such as news, shopping and sports.

That means Yahoo!’s percentage of “standard” organic searches might be lower than the number implies.

Still, Yahoo!’s healthy share of traffic will come in mighty handy if your Google juice fails you.

MSN
MSN is a property of a quaint little organization known as “Microsoft Corp.” MSN is not, shall we say, a favorite among SEO pros.

In forum postings, blogs, and websites, SEOs and website owners complain bitterly about long waits for spidering, irrelevant and spammy results, and a market share number that some believe is inflated by the fact that MSN.com is the default browser home page for many computers.

Though it was very late in creating its own independent search results (as recently as 2005, MSN was still showing results from the Yahoo! database), MSN still has a chance to exceed expectations by leveraging its bulk. Check out the MSN facts below.
Table 4.3 MSN Basics
URL www.msn.com

Percent of search traffic 14.2% (Source:comScore Media Metrix, February 2006)
Primary results Robot crawler
Organic listings also influenced by Open Directory
Ways to submit your site Submit URL form (free) or wait for the robot to find you
Pay-per click services Stated to replace YSM listings with its own adCenter listings in June 2006
In five words or less Watch out for late bloomer.
Keep an eye on Incentives to search (MSN Search and Win), MSN adCenter

MSN could put up some serious competition to the current wonder twins of PPC, Google AdWords and YSM.

AOL
The most important thing to know about AOL is that it uses the Google database for search results.

That means, from an SEO perspective, AOL can be safely ignored. Check out the AOL facts below.
URL
Percent of search traffic

Primary results
Organic listings also influenced by
Ways to submit your site
Pay-per-click services
In five words or less
Keep an eye on
www.aol.com
8.7% (Source: comScore Media Metrix, February 2006)
Google results
None

None; get indexed through Google
Google AdWords
Google is my copilot.
Future partnership deals

AOL may continue to score a respectable share of the search market, but we don’t think AOL will be generating its own independent search results anytime soon.

Want to do well on AOL? Do well on Google (or whoever else AOL partners with in the future). ‘Nuff said.

Ask
In a move that had hundreds of SEO industry wags shouting, “It’s about time!” Ask has dropped Jeeves the butler from its branding, and is redefining itself as a Google like search engine, with a clean, search-focused interface.

Most important, Ask’s previous focus on “natural language” queries such as “who is the prime minister of Kazakhstan?” has given way to a focus on more standard keyword-based queries such as “prime minister kazakhstan.” See below for basic facts about Ask.
URL
Percent of search traffic

Primary results
Organic listings also influenced by
Ways to submit your site
Pay-per-click services

In five words or less
Keep an eye on
www.ask.com
6.5% (Source: comScore Media Metrix, February 2006)
Robot crawler
A very limited number of hand-edited “web answers”
None
Google AdWords, Ask Sponsored Listings
Ready to catch a wave.
Integration with Citysearch.com

With no website submittal process and little market share as of now, Ask receives little attention from the SEO industry, and rightfully so.

Its business strategy seems to be floating in limbo, but the SEO world agrees that the search results are excellent, and that certainly bodes well.
• Keywords: ranking algorithms, web page text, HTML title tags, Inbound link anchor text, Inbound links, Visible HTML text, keyword density, linking text, image ALT tags, meta tags,