You have a domain name, a web host and a website and when all is complete you upload it all to the World Wide Web, so how does anyone find it?

There are more than 3.8 million website's in the world. Where does your website stack up?

Internet Search engines, such as Google, Excite, Lycos, Yahoo etc help people find relevant information on the Internet. These search engines maintain huge databases of indexed websites.

It basically works like this: a computer program called a 'robot' or 'spider', 'crawls' through the web and indexes web pages one at a time. They follow links from website to website and catalogue each site they visit. Each search engine uses its own criteria to determine what to include in its database.

For example, some search engines index each page in a website, while others index only the main page. Some review only the content of the website, while others evaluate the 'Meta Tags'.

Meta tags

This is the term used to describe an "invisible" collection of words or sentences used to describe the content of your website that help search engines index or catalog your website. Meta tags are programmed into and hidden in your websites source code... they are specifically for the search engines - not the viewer.

Not all submitted web sites are added to their databases, a lot depends on a variety of factors such as the volume of submissions and the evaluation of your website. Considering that a 'spider' must index around 4 billion web pages one by one, before they start over again, (about 3 months or more) it can take several weeks before your submission starts to show up on the search engines.

If your website, is not showing up well or is really difficult to find - hand it over to a professional developer to get it checked and optimized.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

This is the necessary meta tag creation, programming and tweaking done by professional web builders to get your website listed near the top of those searches.

"92% of people using the Internet query search engines" Nielsen Net ratings

Note: It typically takes at least 3 months for Search Engine Optimization to work properly. The larger search engines offer paid "instant submission" programs for a monthly maintenance fee. If you are willing to wait, then all you need to pay for is your meta tag creation, and the one-time submission fees and your website should stay at the top or close to the top of most search engines on its own.

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