THE CURRENT VERSION IS SEY 2003

(2003 Overview)

Google URLs

Main: http://www.google.com/
Advanced search: http://www.google.com/advanced_search.html
Submission page: http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Contact page: http://www.google.com/contact/
Physical address: 2400 Bayshore Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone number: 650 330 0100 (8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. PST)
Google images: http://images.google.com
Google groups: http://groups.google.com
Google directory: http://directory.google.com
Google preferences: http://www.google.com/preferences/
About Google: http://www.google.com/about.html
Google Toolbar: http://toolbar.google.com/
Google AdWords (Paid listings): https://adwords.google.com/select/?hl=en

Google has only been around since September 1998 – surprising when you consider how far they are ahead of the other search engines today. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Google is a privately held company with (at the time of writing) just over 400 employees.

Google &

Google still supplies web results to compliment Yahoo directory results – only now the Google results are shown first.

This has HUGE implications. For one thing, a Google listing now reaches almost twice as many eyeballs. Also see the discussion on Yahoo for a more detailed look at what this change means to us in terms of SEO.

Google &

Google powers AOL Search. Below is an extract from a Google Press Release:

Under the agreement, Google's search technology will begin powering the search areas of AOL, CompuServe, AOL.COM and Netscape this summer. By joining Google's industry-leading platform with America Online's extensive consumer audience and popular online brands, the companies plan to create an even better search experience for AOL's more than 34 million members and tens of millions of visitors to America Online's Web-based properties, both domestically and internationally.

To summarize: Getting Google right is crucial, because your Google listing reaches not only Google and Yahoo users but also everyone using AOL Search. (Not many other search engines left, are there?)…

It’s worth noting that the paid listings at AOL (previously supplied by Overture) are now supplied by Google AdWords.

Google & Search Engine Optimization

We estimate that Google results now reach 75 to 80% of all search engine users.

Yes, that’s 75 to 80% !!!

Those that don’t use Google directly see results supplied by Google – either at AOL Search, Yahoo or one of the smaller search engines powered by Google. This immense reach means that Google absolutely HAS to be the focus of your search engine optimization efforts. Fortunately for us, Google is fairly easy.

For starters, submitting your site to Google is free. There is a rumor floating around SEO forums that the site submission service at http://www.google.com/addurl.html is only there to humor us. That Googlebot (Google’s spider) has more than enough URLs in its “to-do” list. Besides, Google only lists web sites that has at least some inbound links – and if it has inbound links, Googlebot will pick it up on its own.

This theory seems fairly credible, but unlikely. At Pandecta, we still submit all our new sites – just to be sure. There’s no harm. A popular misconception is that Google penalizes sites for regular resubmission. Most other search engines do, but Google clearly states on their site that they do not. There is however no point to regular resubmission as it will not improve your site’s rank.

For more detail on

• Google Features,
• AdWords,
• PageRank,
• Do’s & Don’ts,
• The Google Dance,
• Freshness & Everflux and
• links to more Google resources,

please refer to the Search Engine Yearbook.

(2002 Overview)

Google URLs

Main: http://www.google.com/
Advanced search: http://www.google.com/advanced_search.html
Submission page: http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Contact page: http://www.google.com/contact/
Physical address: 2400 Bayshore Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
Phone number: 650 330 0100 (8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. PST)
Google groups: http://groups.google.com
Google Directory: http://directory.google.com
Google preferences: http://www.google.com/preferences/

Notes on Google

In February 1999, the Beta test hit the Internet and Google officially launched in September of the same year. In the comparatively short time since then, it rocketed past big players like AltaVista and Yahoo to become the top search engine.

Google & Search Engine Optimization

Its popularity means that Google should be the focus of your search engine optimization campaign. You're likely to get more traffic from Google than all the other engines put together. In Pandecta's case, Google is responsible for around 80% of our search engine traffic.

Submitting your site to Google is easy and free at http://www.google.com/addurl.html. They update their database about once every 30 days - and can, from time to time, happen that your site disappears after an update. That's a serious problem when 80% of your web site traffic (customers) comes from Google. Here are some techniques you can try to reduce the chance of that happening:

• Don't cloak your pages. Cloaking is definitely not worth the gamble.
• Don't use automatic redirects.
• Can Googlebot (Google's robot) see framed pages? Who knows? Don't take the gamble. Don't use frames.
• Don't use doorway pages. We have some guidelines about using doorway pages the right way.
• Work at convincing many webmasters to link to your site - for the sake of both PageRank and spidering.
• Submit your site once. When it's indexed, leave it. It will be revisited with each update.