Manually
Registering a Multilingual Website with
Localized Search-Engines – Why & How
Contents:
Types of
Search Engines
Why Register?
Why Manually?
How to Register Manually, Step-by-Step
NOTES FOR PROGRAMMERS
Types of Search-Engines
Human
(“Registries”) – These involve a human being looking at the
site, deciding if it should be listed with their
search-engine, and if so, what category it should be listed
(indexed) under. Chief example: www.Yahoo.com.
We had to pay $200 US to get them to even look at our site,
http://www.e-multiweb.com/. At
first they turned it down because it had some ‘unlinked’
pages. We fixed these and appealed within their strict
30-day appeal period, and finally they accepted it. They
indexed it under: Business & Economy>>B2B>>Translation
Services>>Website Translation. We don’t have to pay them
any more, and it will be there indefinitely. NOTE: While
it costs money to register a site with Yahoo.com, there are
several localized-language Yahoo sites. Many of these do not charge yet for registration. And, once
your pages are indexed by these localized Yahoos, eventually
they seem to become a part of Yahoo.com. However,
at least one index or faux-index page must be in the local language to qualify for this.
Mechanical (“Spiders” or “Crawlers”) – These involve several
different kinds of software run by a variety of government
agencies, organizations, groups of universities, Internet
Service Providers, etc. which explore the web, updating their
‘map’ of the Internet constantly by noting any new or changed
web pages and sites. CHIEF EXAMPLE: WWW.GOOGLE.COM.
They note each page’s HTML meta-tags for title, description,
keywords, and ‘alt-text’ (the alternative text that shows up
if the image does not, or when your mouse goes over the image;
very helpful to the visually-impaired with text-to-voice
capabilities).
Some spiders may statistically
analyze each word of text on each page, and compare it to the
meta-tag keywords the author has inserted for it.
Spiders assign points to a page according to the frequency of
encountering particular words in your text. If the words
are also listed as that page’s HTML meta-tags as ‘keywords,’
that page will get more points for ‘relevance.’ If a
client doing a search uses a search-word which is used many
times on a particular page, that page will move up in the
rankings for that particular word, and could even go to the
top of the search-list if, for example, the client typed in
two or three words, and all of them were used several times on
that particular web page. Frequency and relevance
between keyword, text, and client’s search-word list are key
in ‘moving up’ in the search-engine listings.
Also,
‘popularity’ points are assigned to a page. For example,
a page gets popularity points according to how many external
web pages hyperlink to it, and a page also gets points
according to how many ‘hits’ it gets. Having one’s site
analyzed by these spiders is free. In fact, you have no
choice unless you take special steps to tell the
search-engines NOT to index your page (for example if it is a
‘secure’ page)
Why Register?
First,
you don’t have to register at all. If you don’t
register, you will of course never be indexed into a
directory, so can’t be found by people looking, using the
YAHOO site like the ‘yellow pages’ of a phone book. You
will eventually get indexed by the spiders, though. It
will just take longer if you don’t register than if you do.
Once you are indexed by one of the ‘big-name’ spiders, you
will be picked up by all of them. Basically, when you
register, it’s like putting out the ‘Spider Welcome Mat’
inviting the spiders to put you on their list of ‘Must-Sees’
the next time they visit your corner of the World Wide Web!
Why Manually?
You can
register through one of the automatic mass-registration places
in which you submit your website address and contact
information only once; a machine proceeds to “Submit your Site
to over1600 Search-Engines-for FREE!!” I think the price of
using the mass-registration places is that the person whose
e-mail address you give starts receiving LOTS of direct-email
advertising.
It seems
to be better to register with only a few ‘select’
Search-Engines (targeted specifically at the kind of audience
you would like for your clients), and to do this manually.
For one thing, you have a lot more control over what
information you give out, and to whom. They require a
fair bit of private information when you register, such as the
company owner and sometimes even the directors’ names, his/her
e-mail address, mailing address, phone & fax numbers, etc.
We usually only give the minimum information each search-engine
requires. Also, each one asks for different sorts of
information. One might ask you for a list of 12
keywords; another might ask you for a 25 word or less summary
(description). Others won’t ask you anything, preferring
to take the information from the HTML meta-tags directly.
How
to Register with Search-Engines, STEP-BY-STEP
(1) Prepare a list of your (or your client’s) company name,
contact person name, address, phone & fax numbers, and e-mail
address (for the entire site), and the exact URL of the
‘multilingual index’ page – in some cases these will be
required, in some they won’t but you’d best be prepared!
(2)
For the
homepage in your language, have on hand a copy of the title,
description, and keywords in your language. There is a
chance you’ll have to choose the 10 most important of these
keywords, or shorten the title. Be ready for this if it
comes up.
(3) Find a good index of the top Search
Engines in your language. Suggestions: Go to
http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
and click on your country’s name. This will give you a
great list. PLUS: be sure to find out if a localized
version of Yahoo! or Altavista exists in your language; if so,
this is a great place to start. (For the top 18
English-language Search Engines, go to:
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/Major_Search_Engines/
(4)
Go to one
of the search engines you found, and look for some text on
their homepage (far bottom, far top right, or left sidebar are
the usual places) that says something like: ‘Suggest a Site,’
‘List your Site,’ Recommend a Site,’ ‘Register your Site
Here,’ or perhaps ‘Link Here!’ When you click on that,
you just follow the directions and you’re done.
(5)
To protect
yourself (or your client) from unwanted e-mail direct
advertising, be ‘on the lookout’ for small print which asks
you if you do or do not want to ‘be on their mailing list’ or
‘receive helpful information about new products.’ JUST
SAY NO!!
(6)
Note that some localized sites will not
permit you to register the _.htm homepage in the local
language (example:
http://www.e-multiweb.com/japan/japan.htm)
, but instead require you to register the homepage of the
‘multilingual index’ page (example:
http://www.e-multiweb.com/).
This is unfortunate, but can’t be helped.
(7)
VERY
HIGHLY SUGGESTED: Take detailed notes of which search-engines
you registered with, the date, any special information you
gave them, and particularly any ID or Password they gave you!
If you are doing this for a client, they should be given all
of this information. It is very valuable to them.
(8)
It usually takes 5-6 weeks after
it has been manually-registered before a site really shows up
well in all the search engines. BE PATIENT!
NOTES FOR PROGRAMMERS
(1) Make sure
the site has no unlinked pages, images, or files, especially
when registering with a directory! Make sure all pages
you wish to be secure are properly secured. Also make
sure Flash and Javascript has been programmed so that
Search-Engines can ‘jump over’ that programming into the
regular HTML. Otherwise, they may just ‘bounce off’ the
Flash or Javascript and ignore your carefully-crafted page.
(2) For more great information on Search Engines, how to optimize
the HTML in order to get well-indexed, to
http://www.google.com/ and type in
‘search engines,’ of course
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