Internet Marketing -- What Is a Search Engine?
Search engines are the biggest pain in the neck you will face when designing your web page. Why are they a pain? It is because you need to integrate strategies for search engines to find your page right in the design of your site. It shouldn't be an afterthought. You can put a lot of work into making your web site beautiful, but it’s all for nothing if no one sees it.
A search engine has electronic robots or spiders that go and look for information on the web, including your site.
The way you are found by search engines is when someone types a keyword phrase -- let’s say they go to Alta Vista and type in “presentation skills.” Alta Vista has cataloged millions and millions of pages, so they can find the pages on the Internet that are most relevant to that keyword. Their goal is to return the proper list to the person that is looking for information on presentation skills.
Tip: Yahoo, Looksmart, Snap, Dmoz.org are not a search engines. They are directories. They actually have live people that list your site where they believe, or where you help them believe it should go. Not everybody gets in it. So if you try to do Yahoo! be ready with a clear description of where you think your site should go. (see submitting to directories below)