Yahoo

Yahoo! is one of the oldest web directories and portals on
the Internet today, and the site went live in August of
1994. Yahoo! is a 100% human edited directory, and provides
secondary search results using Google.

Yahoo! is also one of the largest traffic generators around,
as far as web directories and search engines go.
Unfortunately, however, it is also one of the most difficult
to get listed in, unless of course you pay to submit your
site. Even if you pay it doesn't guarantee you will get
listed.

Either way, if you suggest a URL, it is "reviewed" by a
Yahoo! editor, and if approved will appear in the next index
update.

Top Search Engines

Ok, so you may know how the search engines work and you may
know that you need to be listed by them, but do you know
which engines get you more bang for the buck? In this
week’s installment, we will review the top search engines on
the Internet today.

Google

Google has increased in popularity tenfold the past several
years. They have gone from beta testing, to becoming the
Internet's largest index of web pages in a very short time.
Their spider, affectionately named "Googlebot", crawls the
web and provides updates to Google's index about once a
month.

Google.com began as an academic search engine. Google, by
far, has a very good algorithm of ranking pages returned
from a result, probably one of the main reasons it has
become so popular over the years. Google has several methods
which determine page rank in returned searches.

Expensive, Dedicated Servers

Advantages Disadvantages
------------------------------------------------------------
Server, software and |The cost is higher than any other
network is managed and |options
supported for |
you |
------------------------------------------------------------
You can select a |
custom domain name |
------------------------------------------------------------
Search engines don’t |
view you as second |
class |
------------------------------------------------------------
Improved response time |
for support |
------------------------------------------------------------
Uptime is improved and |
generally guaranteed |
------------------------------------------------------------
Technical support is |
provided, generally |
24 hours a day |
------------------------------------------------------------
Generally offer a |
wide range of software |
options and |
configurable bundles |
------------------------------------------------------------
Improved bandwidth |
------------------------------------------------------------
Processing power is |
not shared |
------------------------------------------------------------

Your choice of server will depend on how much money you have
available at the beginning and how much you plan to grow in
the future. In my opinion, for commercial sites, free
hosting is a waste of time. Your users are going to get
blasted with annoying pop-ups every time they surf to your
page, it’s going to be impossible to get a decent position
in a search engine, and you don’t even get a real business
URL. No one’s going to remember your Web address if they
have to type www.freehosting.com/my_site. But it is
possible to choose a cheap host at the beginning and move up
as your business begins to bring in money.

Mid-Priced Web Hosting—Shared Servers

Advantages Disadvantages
------------------------------------------------------------
Server, software and |Shared processing power.
network is managed |
and supported for you |
------------------------------------------------------------
You can select a |
custom domain name |
------------------------------------------------------------
Search engines don’t |
view you as second |
class if you have |
your own domain name |
------------------------------------------------------------
Improved response time |
for support |
------------------------------------------------------------
Uptime is improved and |
generally guaranteed |
------------------------------------------------------------
Technical support is |
provided, generally 24 |
hours a day |
------------------------------------------------------------
Generally offer a wide |
range of software |
options and |
configurable bundles |
------------------------------------------------------------
Improved bandwidth

Cheap Web Hosting

Advantages Disadvantages
------------------------------------------------------------
Server, software and | Bandwidth restrictions.
network is managed and|
supported for you. |
------------------------------------------------------------
You can select a | Shared processing power
custom domain name. |
------------------------------------------------------------
Search engines don’t | Limited software.
view you as second |
class if you have your|
own domain name |
------------------------------------------------------------
Improved response time| Potentially limited disk
for support | space
------------------------------------------------------------
Uptime is improved |
------------------------------------------------------------
Technical support is |
provided, generally 24|
hours a day.