A search engine is a very large directory which stores millions of websites. Each search engine uses a different algorithym to depict where abouts a website should appear the in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) for any given phrase entered to the search engine.

A directory is a search tool much like a search engine but with a few major differences. Directories tend to employ human editors to review and rank websites submitted to their database. Yahoo! is the most well known example of a directory. Most directories catalog websites based on a variety of topic categories such as Business and Economics, or Arts and Culture. Most directories demand payment before assigning a website review to one of their editors.

All our websites are created with search engines in mind and the website design is compliant with search engine guidelines. It is a good idea for your website to be re-evaluated in time as over a period of time the search engines do alter their rules and algorithms and you will want to be certain that your website is kept up to date and complies with new rules etc.

The "Title" of a web site is probably the single most important element for natural search engine positioning. The Title is placed within the "head" of the html, is generally 12-15 words long and should be descriptive in nature.

Keywords are the most vital part of your website as they are the basis for the search engine and the users to understand the products and services offered by the website. For more details see SEO toolsunder Keyword Suggestion Tools (12)

The "Description" of your web site also resides within the "head" of your html and is usually a sentence or two containing approximately 15 words which best describe your web site.

META Tags are HTML codes (Website programming language) that allow you to describe your website to automated search engine spiders that periodically visit your website looking for changes or new information. Common META tags include TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORD tags. The TITLE and DESCRIPTION tags are most often used by the search engine to describe your website to search engine users. The KEYWORD tag is used to associate your website with specific search terms on the search engines. While this tag used to be very important, the top search engines either ignore this tag or give it very little weight when determining your search engine ranking. Their secondary purpose is to lead your visitor into your main website. For more details see SEO toolsunder Web Site Optimization Tools (13)

Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all agreed to support one method of submitting a site's pages: through an XML map placed on the root of a website. Search engine sitemaps provide a quick and easy road map for crawlers to follow in order to locate and index each of the pages on your site.
For more details see SEO toolsunder Google Sitemap Tools (1)

A robots.txt file is a short text file that resides in your home directory. Before search engines spider your site, they look into this file to see which files/file types and/or directories they are not allowed to see. This tool will make your robots.txt file. As a little 'extra' it also includes a block to many unwanted spiders that only crawl your site in order to collect the email addresses stored on your pages.(SPAM-bots) For more details see SEO toolsunder Robots.txt Tools (2)

To assure your website gets listed to major search engines, you can submit your website to them. Some search engines like Yahoo, charge for website submission fees, but most usually don't. Here are some major search engine submission pages.

Even after submitting your website, your site still isn't guaranteed to be highly ranked in a search. In order to help boost your site's ranking, you should optimize your web pages for search engines.
You should also consider search engine optimization before designing your homepage, in order to make both an attractive and readable website for potential clients and search engines. By optimizing your website, you increase the chances of having your site ranked in the first couple of pages. Check out 31 Ways to Promote Your Website for easy SEO.

For the same reason you need a card catalogue in a library. There is lots of great and useful information in a library, but it's physically impossible to examine all the books personally. Not even the most indefatigable web-surfer could hyperlink to all the documents in the aptly named World Wide Web. There are billions of pages on the Web. And every minute of the day, folks are posting more. The search engines and directories help you sift through all those 1's and 0's to find the specific information you need.

They use software programs known as robots, spiders or crawlers. A robot is a piece of software that automatically follows hyperlinks from one document to the next around the Web. When a robot discovers a new site, it sends information back to its main site to be indexed. Because Web documents are one of the least static forms of publishing (i.e., they change a lot), robots also update previously catalogued sites. How quickly and comprehensively they carry out these tasks varies from one search engine to the next.

They'd all like you to believe they're either "the biggest" or, if they can't possibly claim that, "the best."
Google currently claims to index over 3.3 billion pages, while Alltheweb.com (one of Yahoo?s many search properties) claims to index over 3.1 billion. Search engines which demand that site owners pay to have their sites indexed, such as AskJeeves, index fewer pages.

Click here for our detailed explanation of search engine technologynology, including keywords, clustering, relevancy ranking, meta tags and more.
For a more highly technologynical discussion, try our page on Search Engine Ranking Algorithms
You could also visit this web page in order tind useful tools for your search engine.

There is less difference now than there used to be, because many search engines, including Google, have built large subject catalogues to help you search.
But think of a Web directory as a subject catalogue--something like the subject catalogue in your local library. Yahoo started out as a directory but is now de-emphasizing that aspect of their broadly-based business.

However, directories such as The Open Directory aka dmoz and the Google Directory attempt to organize Web by dividing it into topics and subtopics. Some examples include: Arts, Science, Health, Business, News, Entertainment. If you're looking for information on the Web that fits neatly into an obvious subject or category, go first to a web directory.

Think of a Web search engine as an index that enables you to seek out specific words and phrases. With the search engine's help, you can locate individual appearances of such words in documents all over the Web.

This can be both a blessing and a curse--but it's more commonly the latter! You are likely to get far too many hits. Or you might discover that your keyword has meanings you didn't anticipate. Rarely, you might get no hits at all.

In brief, here's a quick run-down of some well-known general topic search engines:

Yahoo's directory, the Google Directory, and the Open Directory Project (dmoz) are web directories -- essentially subject indices. They began as attempts to catalogue important/useful pages on the Web. Search on a subject or topic. If you know exactly what subject you're searching for, and have a good sense of how to find your subject within a hierarchies of larger subjects, a directory is a good place to start.

Google was one of the newer search engines, but it rapidly become the favorite. In fact, the word is commonly used as a verb, a synonym for searching: "I'm going to google the web to find the info I need."

Google is thorough and fast. Its technologynology considers pages that are linked from many other sites to be more important than pages that only have a few links from other sites. In other words, if many webmasters consider a website valuable enough to create a link to it, Google considers that a good reason to justsify a high ranking for that site.

Confusingly, while Yahoo's search functionality was for a couple of years been based on Google. In fact, Yahoo was one of Google's investors. As of March, 2004, however, that partnership ended, and Yahoo is now developing their own search technologynology, which will probably be based on search algorithms they obtained when they acquired Inktomi.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's search and MSN.com have also been based on Inktomi's technologynology. (Inktomi provided the technologynology for one of the hot search engines of the 1990s, Hotbot. For more info on 1990s search engines, see our historical information page for more details). Microsoft reports that it is working to develop its own inhouse search technologynology to replace Inktomi, but there is no fixed date for the cutover.

Alltheweb is also one of the newer search engines. It claims to be faster and more efficient than other search engines, with the largest index and the most rapid look-up times.Alltheweb has been acquired by Yahoo, and may at some point be integrated with Inktomi.

AltaVista was the favorite of web searchers a few years ago, but Google blew it out of the water. It still provides users with excellent search refinement capabilities, though. Altavista has also been acquired by Yahoo.

Lycos was one of the original Web search engines, but has morphed into a general web portal with something of a European focus (it was bought by a Spanish company now called Terra/Lycos).Its actual search results are based on the Inktomi engine.

HotBot, as noted above, was the original Inktomi-based search engine, but has largely faded into somewhat unjustified obscurity. It was at one time rated fastest and most accurate product for business and professional purposes, and still is a good alternative to the more popular engines if you are trying to track down information about a specific person.

Excite was a concept-based search engine. We wrote quite a bit about this concept when web search was in its infancy. It was an interesting idea, but concept-oriented search is now web history. Excite.com still maintains a website and a directory, though.

To learn how to search engines work, click here.
To go directly to our Web Search Wizard and quickly find what you want, click here.
For historical ratings and detailed info about search engines of the 1990s, click here.

At the beginning of the web era, users would go to directories to find sites relevant to their interests. In fact, Yahoo!, the web's number one destination, started as a directory. Nowadays, most users rely on search engines, not directories, to find what they're looking for.
When search engines started to become popular, they relied on web pages' 'keyword metatags' to determine the topic and relevance of the page (the keyword metatag is a section within a web page's HTML code where webmasters can insert words that are relevant to the page's content). Webmasters discovered that by stuffing their meta tags with popular search terms repeated hundreds of times, they could propel their pages to the top of the search results.
Search engines caught up to the abuse and decided to ignore the meta tags and rely instead on web page copy. Webmasters then started to overstuff their page copy with popular search terms, often writing them in the same color as the web page's background, so that they could be detected by search engines while being invisible to users.
Again, search engines discovered the trick and decided that the best way to rank a web page's content and its topical relevance was to rely on inbound links from other pages. The rationale behind this is that it is much more difficult to influence other people to link to you than it is to manipulate your own web page elements. In fact, inbound links are the foundation of Google's Pagerank? algorithm.
There are several ways to get inbound links, among them writing articles that include your bylines with a link to your page, exchanging links, and listing your site in directories.
Listing your sites in good directories is probably the best way to get quality links that are highly valued by the search engines. Since directories rely on human editors who enforce strict criteria to list a site, and since directories organize the information in highly focused categories, they are an invaluable resource for search engines to measure the quality and the relevance of a web page.
In summary, directories are important not because they generate significant traffic (they don't), but because they are given great importance by the search engines to qualify and rank web pages, and to determine their topical relevance.
You should definitely list your site with quality directories if you want to increase your chances of success with the search engines.

This tool list is copyrighted ? 2003-2006 by SEO Company. View my Free SEO Tools page which has my own set of tools.
Check out my Web Directory Submission Services
Tool of the Month, Year & Most Improved Awards Go To...

mcdar.netMcDar Keyword Analysis Tool Web Design, SEO & Tools 123promotion.co.ukKeyword Popularity Tool SE Promotion & SEO Tools webconfs.com Domain Age Tool SEO Tools elixirsystems.comLink Quality Assessment SEO Services seobench.comMulti DC PageRank Checker SEO Tools top25web.comSearch Engine Ranking Report SEO Forum, Blog & Tools marketleap.comLink Popularity Checker SEM, SEO Tools & Monthly Report dogpile.comDogpile Search Comparison Web Search xml-sitemaps.comOnline XML Sitemaps Generator XML Sitemaps webuildpages.comBacklink Check Tool Internet Marketing Services checkrankings.comCheck Rankings Online Keyword Ranking webconfs.comBacklink Anchor Text Analyzer Search Engine Optimization Tools

New SEO Tools (4)
Google vs Yahoo Graph	Graphic display of top 50 in Google & Yahoo linked.
Keyword Density Analyzer	Keyword Density Analyzer by seobench.com Enter URL, determines density of 1, 2, and 3 word phrases.
Multi DC PageRank Checker	Check PR values across all Google datacenters.
Retrieve SERPs	Retrieve SERPs by seocritique.com Google datacenter SERP checker.

Alexa Tools (4)
Alexa Page Ranking	Cut & Paste or browse file for domain list
Alexa Rank Tool	Alexa Rank Tool by SearchBliss 3 month, 1 week, today Alexa Rank.
Alexa Ranking	Cut & Paste or browse file for domain list
Alexa Related Rank Check	Input up to ten domains - get 1 week, 3 month average & 3 month up/down Alexa Ranking.

Backlink Tools (1)
Backlink Check Tool	Shows anchor text for your sites backlinks.

Code Validation (2)
Atom & RSS Feed Validator	RSS feeds validator
W3C Markup Validation Service	Official W3C compliance validator

Combined Keyword Suggestion Tools (1)
Combine Words	Combine words script for PPC systems.

Combo Search Engine Ranking Tools (4)
Search Engine Placement Check	Enter URL/Keyword - Displays top 30 for 11 Search Engines.
Search Engine Position Checker	Enter URL/Keyword - Displays top 50 for 9 Search Engines.
Search Engine Positioning	Enter URL/Keyword - Displays top 100 for 5 Search Engines.
Search Engine Ranking Report	Input key phrase list & get Google & Yahoo Rankings.

Compare Search Engine Ranking Tools (8)
Dogpile Search Comparison	Shows top results from 3 search engine.
Google vs Yahoo Graph	Graphic display of top 50 in Google & Yahoo linked.
Google-Yahoo-Ask Search	Combines search results from Google, Yahoo! & Ask Jeeves.
Myriad Search	Meta search engine that combines Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves.
Search Results Compared	Google, Yahoo, MSN results in one search
Thumbshots Ranking	Based off the Langreiter tool but lets you compare 6 different Search Engine Results with each other.
Yahoo vs Google	Langreiter - Graphic Compare of Google & Yahoo top 100 results.
Yahoo-Google Search	Shows top 100 Yahoo/Google results together.

Domain Tools (17)
Bad Neighborhood Checker	Checks if you're linking to bad neighborhoods
Browser Screen Resolution Checker	Check what you Website looks like in different
C Class Backlink Analyzer Tool	Shows your links for differnet Class-C site.
Class C Checker	Class C IP range checker.
Class C Range Checker	Unique Class C IP Checker - Cut & Paste or load up a file.
DNS Report	Checks your domain and does email test.
Domain Age Tool	Determines the age of the domains entered.
Domain Dossier	IP to host, host to ip, traceroute, whois zone file. Hot Tool!
Domain Stats Tool	Enter domain and getdomain age, number of pages indexed, and number of backlinks.
Free Site Monitor	Server monitor and alert service
HTML Header Viewer	Shows HTTP headers the web server is sending.
HTTP / HTTPS Header Check	Allow you to inspect the HTTP headers that the web server returns when requesting a URL.
IP Address Report	Bulk class C IP address checker.
Reciprocal Link Checker	Checks if the partners still link back
Redirects And HTTP Headers Checker	Checks for redirects on a domain
Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker	Enter URL - Check your redirect to see if it is SE friendly
What Is My IP Address	Shows the IP of your computer or routers.

Exchange Link SEO Tools (4)
Free Broken Link Checker	Tests all links site wide and reports any broken links.
One Way Link Verify	Track your one-way links - Shows status and PR.
Online Free Reciprocal Link Checker	Enter links - Reports back which ones are up, down or unreachable.
Site Link Analyzer	Lists internal and external links for input URL.

Google Ranking Tools (6)
Advanced Google Search Methods	Enter domain/keyword and do different Google searches like site etc.
Google Datacenter Watch Tool	Shows the differnet Ranking results for different datacenters.
Google One Line Results	Google displays each results as one-liners with anchor text the title.
Google Rank Position	Shows Google rank position, PR, number of entries indexed, DMOZ and Google Dir status.
Google Rankings	Enter URL/Keyword - Searches the first 1000 entries.
Retrieve SERPs	Google datacenter SERP checker.

Google Sitemap Tools (1)
Online XML Sitemaps Generator	A free online Google XML Sitemaps Generator

Internet Bookmarking (2)
Del.icio.us - Social Bookmarker	Social bookmarking
Your Personal Web File	Social bookmarking

Keyword Suggestion Tools (12)
Free Keyword Search Tool	Displays keyword data using Wordtracker and Google search results.
Free Meta Keywords Tool	Reads meta keywords and hotlinks them to 3 keyword mining tools.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool	Keyword tool from Google that provides Specific and Similar keywords.
Google Keyword Suggestions	Queries Google for related relevant and popular terms.
Google Suggest	Google keyword completions when searching.
Keyword Generator	Keyword searches from Espotting Media's (UK) PPC database.
Keyword Popularity Tool	Search Overture & WordTrackers database - Mines these terms with dictionary, thesaurus etc.
Keyword Research Tool	Tool returns similar keywords found in the meta keywords of sites searched by your choice of 9 search engines.
Keyword Suggestion Tool	Keyword searches from Overture and Wordtracker (Wordtracker displays singular/plural & correct order).
Search Term Research	Searches Overture data for 16 countries and more.
Search Term Suggestion Tool	Shows keywords and frequency searched on Overture (Yahoo/MSN) last month.
Website Keyword Suggestions	Provides keyword suggestions along and keyword traffic estimates for the entered website.

Keyword Tools (7)
GoogleDuel Original	Compares the popularity of two words - Good for checking Plural/Singlar.
Keyword Density	Enter URL - Generators keyword phrases from your webpage and displays density.
Keyword Density Analyzer	Keyword Density Analyzer by Stargeek gives you keyword density for 1, 2 and 3 word combinations. Enter URL - Displays 1, 2, and 3 word combinations.
Keyword Density Analyzer	Enter URL/Keywork - Displays density each different page component.
Keyword Density Analyzer	Enter URL, determines density of 1, 2, and 3 word phrases.
Keywrd Density Analyzer	Enter URL - Webpage stats PR/Links/W3C/etc.
Ontology Finder	Provides synonymous terms to keywords - Use these in your webpage text.

Link Popularity Tools (10)
Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer	Blacklink analyzer that shows URL and anchor text.
Link Appeal	Enter URL - Rates for link appeal.
Link Popularity & Site Analysis Tool	Shows links/pages for Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask/Alexa
Link Popularity Checker	Lists inbound links from 7 search engines & provides history.
Link Popularity Checker	Shows inbound links for Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Allintheweb & Hotbot.
Link Popularity Checker	Enter URL - Displays backlinks on 5 Search Engines.
Link Popularity Tool	Statistics regarding a site popularity
Link Quality Assessment	Shows IBLs, dir.yahoo, DMOZ, EDU, & GOV links.
Report Bot	Checks Links on 5 Search Engines, PR, Alexa Ranking, DMOZ.
Uptime Bot	Off-page (popularity) stats

Misc Tools (7)
Adsense Ad Display	Input URL shows AdSense Ads for that web page.
Check Yahoo WebRank	Allows you to check the Yahoo WebRank of up to 5 URLs at a time.
Domain Directory Checker	See if your domain appears in 10 Internet Directory's.
Search Engine Index Checker	Enter URL - Shows number of pages for 5 Search Engines.
Site Wide Cache Check	Checks for cached pages and provides cache date.
URL Rewriting Tool	Creates Mod-Rewrite rules to convert dynamic URLs to static looking URLs.
URL Trends	Full page popularity stats

MSN Ranking Tools (2)
MSN Position Search	MSN Search for up to 15 keywords on one domain.
MSN Rankings	MSN Beta Rankings - Search Engine Rankings.

Page Rank Tools (3)
Datacenter Quick Check	Checks datacenters for BL, PR and Ranking.
Future PageRank Tool	View PR during updates on 18 data-centers one screen one search.
Page Rank Tool	Shows PR on the differnet Google datacenters.
Pay Per Click Tools (2)
CPM and CPC ROI Calculators	CPM and CPC return on investment calculators.
Overture Bid Amounts	Overture bid amounts for keywords

Related Page Rank Tools (10)
Backlink Checker	Input webpage - Returns number of inbound links for each PR position.
Google PageRank Calculator	Input keyword - Shows PR and Backlinks.
Google PageRank Prediction	Looks at your URL and predicts PR
Google PageRank Report	Cut & Paste - Shows PR for unlimited sites.
Multi DC PageRank Checker	Check PR values across all Google datacenters.
Page Rank Grid Calculator	Construct the relationship of your website pages & calculate PR.
Page Rank Search	Google search results with PR bar and inbound links.
Pagerank Calculator	Mark Horrell's Pagerank Calculator
PageRank Lookup	Cut & Paste - Shows PR of up to 100 URLs.
PageRank Search Prog	Displays Google by pagerank - IMPROVED Prog Tool.
Robots.txt Tools (2)
Robots.txt Generator	Creates simple robots.txt file.
Robots.txt Syntax Checker	Checks your robots.txt file for errors.

Search Engine Position Tools (5)
Cool SEO Tool	G/Y/M/A ranking, pages, backlinks, allinanchor, & domain age.
McDar Keyword Analysis Tool	Enter URL/Keyword - Displays PR/Backlinks/Pages for top 10.
Page Report	Shows pages, BL, PR, unique domains etc.
Pages Indexed Backlinks Domain Pagerank Allinanchor Keyword Density Tool	Shows pages, BL, PR, Allinanchor, keyword density, etc.
PulseRank	Tracks Ranking movement on Google for 1000 keywords.

Text Link Ad Value Tools (3)
Keyword Difficulty Tool	Rates difficulty of ranking on Google for key phrase.
Link Price Calculator	Show value of text link ad.
Link Value	Calculates link value per month rental.

Toolbars (7)
Google Toolbar For Firefox	Download File - Toolbar displays PageRank has Google Search.
Google Toolbar For IE	Download File - Toolbar displays PageRank has Google Search.
Mozdev GoogleBar	Download Files - DL the Mozdev Googlebar and add the PR bar for both Mozilla and Firefox.
PR Toolbar Widget For Macintosh	Download File - PR Toolbar Widget for Macintosh.
Search MSN Toolbar	Download File - Toolbar for Beta MSN Search.
Yahoo Toolbar For Firefox	Download file - Toolbar for Yahoo Search.
Yahoo Toolbar For IE	Download file - Toolbar for Yahoo Search.

Track Ranking Tools (1)
Check Rankings	Graph view of Google rankings for keywords.

Web Site Optimization Tools (13)
Advanced Meta Tag Generator	Sophisticated meta tag generator.
Cache.it	Shows information lots of information for your site.
Code to Text Calculator	Enter URLs - Calculates Code to Text Ratio.
Copyscape	Searches for copies of your page on the Web.
Google Banned Tool	Shows if you are in the Google index.
Meta Tag Generator	Enter meta info - Creates meta tag code.
Meta Tag Generator	Creates meta tags for 9 tags.
Poodle Predictor	Use in Diagnostics View to see order of spidered text.
Search Engine Spider Simulator	Enter URL - Displays page content minus code.
Search Engine Spiders	Spiders your page and shows what the spider sees.
Similar Page Checker	Enter URLs - Compares pages for similar content.
Watchfire WebXACT	Checks over your web page for things to numerous to note.
Web Page Analyzer	Enter URL/Keyword - Checks copy for optimization.

Yahoo Ranking Tools (2)
Yahoo Rank Position	Shows Yahoo rank position, numbmer of entries indexed.
Yahoo Search Rankings	Enter URL/Keyword - Searches the first 1000 entries.

The two important aspects of Google are your page rank and page relevancy. Your page rank is affected by the number of existing sites that point to your site (the more important the site is the higher the ranking, ie. Gov of Canada website is more important than thewebshop.ca). Secondly, how many other links are found on the pages that link to your site, if a site has 3 links off its site that would be more valuable than if the site had 100 links to other sites. Thirdly how many sites does your site link to, the more sites your site links to the higher the page rank. Page relevancy is driven by the wording of inbound links and analysis of word and phrase usage on specific web pages.

Google's pay per click advertising program,AdWords, generates web traffic through the use of their search engine and partner sites. AdWords provides advertisers with highly effective text ads that are displayed with the search results and/or on related content sites.
Yahoo! Sponsored Search Yahoo's pay per click advertising program, offers specialized pay per click advertising. Sponsored Search prominently displays your ad in search results on leading sites, such as Yahoo!, AltaVista, iVilliage, InfoSpace, CNN and HP.
The Directory of Ezines provides a complete online searchable database of ezines that accept advertising. This directory contains all the information you'll need to effectively place your ads. There is a $39.95 per year membership fee. Directory of Ezines
Ezine Ad Auction will enable you to bid on ad space in targeted ezines.Ezine Ad Auction

Google Ad-sense allows owners of websites to generate revenue from Google by allowing them to advertise on their websites.