[Gloucs] ALT Tags - Meta Tags - How search engines really work

[bjh]

Hi Guys,

Some of you may have been watching the interesting (to me) exchange of
messages concerning web page design, search engines and page ranking that
was started by Guy (thanks Guy)...

I thought it may be useful to bring in a specialist site that supplies
greater definition to the subject matter
http://www.searchenginewatch.com of particular interest is the analysis of
which search engines use which methods to crawl.

For instance http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/features.html
describes the different main engines and methods, and we find that both
Inktomi and Fast search engines do not recognise ALT image tags at all.

This is a major factor for site builders to consider as the INKTOMI engine
is used to power a considerable number of international search engines!!!

Suffice to say, regrettably, the safest method is to use "text" to enable
all the search engines to read your pages and rank your site as highly as
possible with the addition of "meta tagged" key words to aid the "meta
crawler" type of engine.

The information on this site is very reliable and Danny Sullivan has
provided this special service for a few years now and has watched, tested
and noted the various engine search system changes as fast as they change,
which is, frequently!

Happy site building folks... I hope that the information is of help to those
who may find the subject of interest...

Barrie Haycock



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