Instead, he offers some general suggestions for getting listed. For Ross's Modem Shop, however, the work has paid off in plenty of business, and he says he believes small companies in particular should make the effort to get listed. Effective use of Web page headlines and META tags are also important factors in getting listed by a search engine. The data collected by the spider is indexed, then included in the next revision of the search site's database, according to search engine experts. This process, from submission to listing, typically takes about two weeks, or at least it does at Excite, says Chris Carpenter, director of search services for the Redwood City, CA, Web search site.
Several factors can work against a site getting listed.
For instance, if the site is down when the spider queries it, the spider will not be able collect the information the search engine needs to index it. She says that two keys to defining quality and relevancy are well thought-out META tags, and headings that are relevant to a page's contents. She emphasizes the importance of META tags in particular. Yahoo, as noted, does not send spiders out cruising the Web to search out sites for its category-based listing. Instead, it uses an editorial staff to review submitted Web sites manually before they are listed in one of Yahoo's various categories.