alt_religion_scientology/FACTNetARS20020323

Some people have voiced the opinion that users should just move over to some
other search engine instead of GOOGLE. This might well suit people who are
trying to find search engine nirvana but it doesn't solve the problem for
website owners.

We live and die based on the amounts of visitors we get.

We therefore rephrased the question as "What search engines and web
directories are the most frequently used by netizens?". And asked a
tech-head to go and find the answer.

Being the multi-dimensional bright spark that he is, he went and copied
stats from a bunch of websites that he had access to. He chose a mixed bag
of for-profit and non-profit sites. He made sure to choose sites that were
not designed by himself.

The top 5 engines + directories that were sending traffic to these sites are
displayed below the dotted line.

It would appear that Google, Yahoo, MSN are the most frequently used.

MSN as a default is shipped with most new computers in the USA and we expect
this to become more important and dominant over time.

If Yahoo does not have anything in its directory it defaults to a Google
result. This makes Google pretty important. But the hidden hand in all this
is DMOZ. Google relies heavily on DMOZ for assistance in presenting results.
So one would want to be real up on getting a DMOZ directory listing and also
optimizing one's site for Google.

Nevertheless, Yahoo can be a thorn in one's side since a lot of older users
on the net have Yahoo as their start-up page because they have Yahoo mail or
because Yahoo is really old and established....whatever.

Which makes Yahoo a gold mine if one can get a good listing. Yahoo knows
this and has over the past 6 months tightened its control over free
listings. They want people to pay the "US$299.00 non-refundable, recurring
annual fee" to get their websites listed.

This puts websites like Operation Clambake between a rock and a hard place.
Their main index page is not listed in the "Faiths and Practices >
Scientology > Opposing Views" category.

A less important page of theirs is listed in "Faiths and Practices >
Scientology > Opposing Views > Copyright Controversy". (We seem to recall
that their index page was once listed correctly in "Opposing Views". But we
could be wrong.)

Our tech-head friend says that it has recently become a bit of a crap-shoot
to try and get stuff listed for free at Yahoo. But it is a pity that
Operation Clambake is not listed correctly.

Since y'all were so good in the Google scandal we thought you could figure
out the solution to this conundrum. (We don't suggest multiple "site
suggestions" since this would be construed as spam.)

------------------------------------------------

1. Yahoo! 40.0%
2. Google 16.5%
3. MSN 11.7%
4. AOL 9.0%
5. Netscape 3.1%

1. Google 49.84%
2. Microsoft Network 14.46%
3. Yahoo 12.92%
4. AltaVista 12%
5. Lycos 5.84%

1. google.com/ 13.12%
2. search.msn.com/ 8.09%
3. google.yahoo.com/ 7.34%
4. auto.search.msn.com/ 2.51%
5. google.com/ 1.02%

1. google.com 44.6%
2. yahoo.com 33.6%
3. msn.com 7.3%
4. www.google.ca 2%
5. lycos.com 1.5%

1. search.msn.com/
2. google.com/
3. search.yahoo.com/
4. dir.yahoo.com/
5. google.yahoo.com/
6. altavista.com/

1. google.com/search
2. yahoo.com/bin/query
3. google.ca/search
4. ask.com/main/metaAnswer.asp
5. worldweb.com/

IOHO
FACTNet Staff

F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.
PO Box 3135
Boulder, CO 80307-3135 USA

* Web site http://www.factnet.org/
* E-mail mailto: manage@factnet.org
* Donations http://www.factnet.org/donation.htm
* Subscriptions to Newsletters http://lists.factnet.org/mailman/listinfo/factnet-news

F.A.C.T.Net is a non-profit 501(c)(3) news source, referral service, and
archive protecting freedom of mind from harms caused by psychological
coercion.