Tech: Web searches - 3 questions

Subject: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,CraigS
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:03 PM

My biggest problem is there are so many good guitarists that scare me, but there's not a lot to be done about that.

Right now, I have three questions (NO, SPAW, THIS IS NOT A FAIRY STORY)

Question one is how to attract traffic to a website - which hasn't got two million pages, pics of barenaked wimmin, MP3s, or jokes - without paying money to have it listed?

Question two is how to find those oh-so-useful sites I used to visit, full of useful FAQs and data, with all-text message boards fitted with propellorheads who could tell you how to grow gardenias, repair a microwave oven, and fix your operating system in a four-line message? Google doesn't turn them up very often, and when it does the first one you find is on page four of the query. I'm sure they still exist ... don't they?

Question three - There are some things that are very difficult to search for. A friend of mine, a personnel manager, was out of a job a couple of years ago, and it was very tricky to find suitable posts because every advertisement said "contact personnel... " . I recently bought an old Dallas electric guitar, and trying to find info was close to impossible because of the Dallas ELectric Company and similar. Any neat dodges around this sort of problem?

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:10 PM

Try using other search engines: metacrawler, lycos, altavista, etc. They very often pick up pages others don't -- Google just happens to be one of several good ones.

Put words you want searched together between "quotation marks".

You don't have to pay to have website listed; it'll spread throughout the Internet like a creeping cancer. Those who take payment just spread it faster.

Make the website well-designed, fairly quick to load, and full of useful info. Don't make it just about yourself. The rules of good writing apply to websites as well as to books.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Burke
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:15 PM

For your nerds, try searching on the Groups tab at Google.

When did Google Escherize it's logo? I just noticed it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:26 PM

Craig - I hadn't given up on this. Dallas Guitars - Blue Book gives the following entry:

"Instruments previously made in England, West Germany, and Japan during the early to mid 1960s. Some guitars may also carry the trademark of TUXEDO.

The DALLAS and TUXEDO trademarks are the brand names used by a UK importer/distributor. Early solid body guitars were supplied by either FENTON-WEILL or VOX in Britain, with entry level German and Japanese original design guitars imported in.

(Source: Tony Bacon and Paul Day, The Guru´s Guitar Guide)"

(The search was done with Yahoo's advanced search option, including the words electric guitar Dallas and excluding the words society fest show Texas. This reduced returns from original ca 150K to about 6K. This was on the 2nd page).

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:29 PM

Sorry - on 1st page of results - 20th entry.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:33 PM

Adding Tuxedo to that search returns other entries for the Dallas Tuxedo Guitar including the possibility that this one was John Lennon's: Magical Mystery was this John Lennon's Guitar?. Does that headstock look familiar? Mr S are you in fact John Lennon?


Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:39 PM

Try search engines like Metacrawler and go to the advanced search options. There you can tell it how sensitive you want it to search--tell it a longer "time out" period and it has time to dig deeper. Ask for more hits from particular sites. I use Hotbot when I want to see EVERYTHING that is out there and filter through it myself (versus letting the search engine decide what is "relevant").

For getting your site noticed, you need to put in effective meta text at the beginning of the site. A search engine spends a nanosecond scanning the first page or two of any site, and if the metalanguage is there, and the words you want to emphasize appear frequently, it is more likely to be picked up as a valid "hit."

If you sell hats, you can't get away with meta text that says "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" "hat" because it knows to ignor this kind of duplication. But if you have "cowboy hat" "fireman's hat" "fur hat" "ball cap hat" "straw hat" "bowler hat" etc., it will notice all of those. So if you're selling guitars, name each one in your meta stuff at the beginning.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,CraigS
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:45 PM

I don't want people to be unhelpful, but I'm looking for search techniques, not info on my poxy old guitar - that was just an example.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:53 PM

Ranking - a lot of it is Conectivity

as with the Kevin Bacon game (match any actor to Kevin Bacon through film or friendship) in 6 moves.

The trick is to find an actor who has done a lot of films in the middle of the game.

1) If your website has loadsa hyperlinks to other sites, and has links back to it then it goes up the ranking.
2) Keyword Meta tags
3) Have a Title
4) Don't get shirty if people don't link to you move-on - I find that 50% of people getting free publicity don't even reply to e-mails.
5) find all the free submission avenues (no idea how you find them some even e-mail me!)
6) Join web ring (I gave-up on that one they come and go)
7) Having a rather unique name can help

cresby.com

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,CraigS
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 06:04 PM

This is getting good - thanks, folks!

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 06:08 PM

For automated submissions to search engines, there are several services that do basic service for free, as well as charging for advanced services. www.addme.com and www.addpro.com are two of them.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 06:36 PM

We found this site helpful in getting our site listed. Yahoo wanted to charge us but, instead, we submitted it to google for free and now it appears on Yahoo.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Grab
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 07:40 PM

On your third question, make your search more specific. If you just search on "Dallas" then expect to get deluged. If you search "Dallas electric guitar wood headstock neck fret pickup" then you're more likely to get what you want. Try to think up words to include with your search which will only apply to the thing you're looking for.

On your second question, Google groups may help. Or webrings are also useful for that (www.webring.org IIRC). But please note that searching is NOT a replacement for checking through stuff yourself. There's a lot of pages out there, so be prepared to spend some time searching. If it's on page 4 of the Google search, you've done pretty well - you've probably taken 10 minutes at most to find what you wanted. How long would it have taken you to find similar information in a library? Otherwise it's down to finding stuff on Google that looks close, and then checking links off that site, and links from there, and generally hunting around the subject. Persistence is the answer.

For your first question, make sure the site is useful, has information on it which people will want to read, has information on it which is unique to your site (or is not duplicated as well on other sites), and is well-focussed on the topic at hand. If no-one else will want to read your pages, or if you're writing something which Microsoft or someone else has done a million times better, your page will never be seen.

Burke, Google regularly messes with its logo, sometimes for sports events or annual occasions (eg. Christmas), and sometimes just for the hell of it. I do like that current Escher version.

Graham.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:38 PM

Question 1, more traffic.

What kind of traffic do you want? Determine the word(s) people will use when searching for your page.   Put that word in your title (you can sneak in almost any word..."MYNAME - home for a great guitar"), in your URL if possible, as many times as you can in the meta words, and as close to the top of the first page as possible. You can use a marquee at the top of the page to change the first words every few months. People linking to you helps, but make sure you have worthwhile content so many people will link. Do several searches and copy the meta words of the top ranked pages. Try to get listed by official organizaions...The Real Estate Listings of Mytown, The Professional Orgaization for Myinterests, The Chamber of Commerce List of Local Businesses, etc. Possibly include a "hook" in your content. (If you're selling guitars, provide content mentioning famous guitar players or popular songs.) Most people shouldn't count on a website to generate business, but it sure is handy to use in advertising for people to go take a look at what's there.

Question 2, finding useful sites.

I can usually find anything I need by using specific words in quotes in Google. I often look at the Google results and rule out slow-loading (Geocities, etc.) sites. Look at the bookmarks and links at "official" sites or at a college student's site. Many times I just go to about.com and follow their links.

Question 3, dodging irrelevant data. This goes back to question 2.

Often when starting a search, I don't know the words to use. So I just start with general terms and pick up vocabulary buzz words from the first few hits. Also, learn to use the "minus" certain words as suggested above. Some of my best info has been from bulletin boards where I pick up the latest and newest in buzz words.

Just ask at Mudcat!

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 12:29 AM

Go to Google's All About Google page. You can follow the links to find answers to your questions.

As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot just by watching."

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 04:54 AM

Craig -
QUESTION 3 :-
One search engine I regularly use is http://vivisimo.com/. It displays results and then groups them into categories which contain the same combinations of keywords. Some of the groupings are obviously NOT the ones you need to check. It doesn't always work, but regularly shortens the amount of chaff you must sift through to find the set of pages relevant to you.
As for techniques, I think other posters wewre trying to show - using your example - how they would modify the search terms (add more relevance/delete common words) to get a better "HIT" rate (e.g. Never include "the" as it appears in almost every webpage written in English). BUT most search engines allow you to input a string of words as a phrase. In that case, the search engine will treat "Words in Quote marks" as a single entity for which to search - try typing "the the" without quote marks and you will get a different set of results than if you type WITH quote marks. The second option finds references to Matt Johnson's band "The The" - the first option doesn't, because it isn't selective.
Using the above strategies, you can get relevant results. Trying "Personnel Manager" in quotes gives a better hit rate for job adverts for that position. It also pulls up books and courses for personnel managers.

QUESTION 2 :-
The search techniques used in QUEASTION 3 are valid for finding special interest groups and forums. Type GARDENING MESSAGE BOARD into your search engine and you will get a lot of discussion sites. GEEK FAQ will hit specialist sites on computing (try it - it works - you get UNIX, Networking, Hacking Windows NT, Perl etc.)

QUESTION 1 :-
Are you asking a general question, or is it a specific website you want to attract attention to? If it is a specific one, put a BLICKY here and we'll have a look. Th Mudcat is full of people who will make imaginitive suggestions - some of them might even be useful!
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 05:52 AM

Just a thought but I have links I use regularly so I always go to my page and click (to here). Now if you went via Google (maybe because your own URL is a bit long) then Google would see you being searched and add one gold star for popularity. Every little helps. No, I wouldn't do that but you have to check regularly to see what your ranking is, don't you?

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: GUEST,Peter from Essex
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 03:39 PM

On question 1

Links to you are vital.

Meta tags are going out of fashion among search engines. Still use
them however. but they should map onto phrases in the body.

Use phrases in the body of your page that people will search on. Don't hide key terms in graphics - it is a classic mistake to put the site's name into a fancy graphic and not show it anywhere in plain text.

Give each page a proper title and description.

Subject: RE: Tech: Web searches - 3 questions
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:25 PM

The art (I use the term carefully) of searching is hard to explain...it is a mix of 'technique' in search engine use combined with a feel for terms/phrases that SHOULD be in the results. I think an understanding of standard stereotyping (that is, what 'most' people say) is a great help.

as to question 2, the secret is to have 2-3 sites which do the work for you!...
I regularly check BlackStump for random mind jogglers, and their archives for data on almost everything.

but the most complete, well organized site I know for just information about information, is My Virtual Reference Desk Once you use this place a few times, you can find links to almost anything, including other reference sites!

A trick, not terribly well known, is to find a good site, like RefDesk above, and go to Google or AltaVista..(and maybe others) and, in the search box enter: "link:name of site" as in link:http://www.refdesk.com/toc.html ......this asks Google to list other sites which link to the chosen site, and thus finds many sites which have done the work FOR you.
Using that trick on RefDesk, I found http://library.pittstate.edu/ref/resources/virtual.html which has LOTS of reference sites....

these general tricks can be expanded to almost any subject matter, and, working backwards, be used to construct YOUR site to conform to easily searchable parameters....I think...*grin*

hope some of this is useful