If you’ve spent much time searching, you have probably noticed that the search engines are not displaying a homogeneous set of results. Most search engine take the “chef’s salad” approach, displaying a mix of robot-sourced listings, directory listings, image and video, and paid ads. Knowing what each type of listing looks like and where they come from is the first step in being able to influence your own listing in a positive way. Here are some types of results that are commonly available to searchers.
Directories
Unlike those robot search results search engines, directory listing are often compiled by humans. Whether these humans are editors who work for the search engines or the site owners themselves who write and submit their own listings, it is often easy to tell the difference between a directory and a robot search result. Take a look at this robot generated listing from Google. It’s called a snippet- text slurped directory from webpage and spat out into the search results page.
Now take a look at this directory listing. Note the sentence-like structure, the human touch, and the category information.
Directories aren’t likely to come out and find you the way robots will; site owners need to submit to them manually. Sometimes you can purchase a listing, sometimes they’re free, and sometimes you pay for the “privilege” of having your submittal reviewed whether your site is included or not. Although it’s a little extra work to achieve directory listings, at least you can be relatively certain that your submittal will be reviewed by somebody and your site will have a fair chance of getting in. This is different from the robots, which do not guarantee review or inclusion.
Paid Search Ads
No matter how blurred the line between unpaid and paid search gets in the search engine results, you, as the SEO expert, will always know the difference. That’s because, while it’s possible to get listed in robot search engines, meta search engines, and even directories without actually doing anything, you will have to actively implement and carefully manage any paid advertising for your own site. And, of course, there’s that little matter of the checkbook, too.
Pay-per-click(PPC) services are the simplest paid search option. Here’s how it works:
You open account with a PPC engine, such as Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. You decide which search terms you want your site to be seen for, and you write your own listing to correspond with your chosen terms. Every time a searcher clicks on your listing, you pay the PPC engine a fee. You control the amount you want to spend for each click and this is a major factor in the placement of your listing.
Paid search is the SEO marketing venue over which you have the most control. It offers you a chance to micro-manage your website marketing by being able to target specific messages to specific terms, and even specific geographical locations. It gives you the opportunity to change your message on a whim, and it provides some of the most conclusive tracking around. Therefore, although paid search is by no means a requirement for good SEO, it’s an Eternally Attractive Option to have available to you.
Site Feed
Site feeds have been around for years in one form or another, but their methodology is still morphing. Available in various forms, they are Eternally Helpful for large or frequently updated sites. Just as you may use a feed reader to be notified of your favorite blog or news topic, the search engine use site feeds to sit back and receive information from websites without sending spiders out to constantly gather, gather, gather. Feeds work well for regularly edited websites such as blogs and news sites, online sellers and media-rich websites. You may also have heard of trusted feed or paid inclusion programs where search engine allow certain “trusted”- and, usually,paying- websites to send the engines regular updates.
Generally, these types of listings get thrown into the mix with robot-gathered sites and have to fend for themselves, with no special status in the ranking algorithms.
