Which of the many search engines really matter? Usually, it's the search engines that are well-known and well-used. This is true whether you are a webmaster or a searcher.

For webmasters, a good listing in a search engine that promotes itself well, or has strong strategic alliances, is more likely to bring traffic than a lesser-known search engine. For example, being listed in a search engine advertised in popular internet magazines and on T.V. will result in much more traffic than a lesser-known search engine. This also translates into more traffic for sites that are ranked well by these search engines.

Studies have shown that over 80% of internet searches are done using the top five search engines which are:

Before going any further, it's important to explain the difference between search engines and directories. They are often confused. A more detailed explanation can also be found on the How Search Engines Work page, and site subscribers have access to even more detailed information about how some of the search engines listed here operate.

Search Engines: Also called "spiders" or "crawlers," search engines constantly visit web sites on the Internet in order to create catalogs of web pages. Because they run automatically and index so many web pages, search engines may often find information not listed in directories.

Directories: Unlike search engines, directories are created by humans. Sites must be submitted, then they are assigned to an appropriate category or categories. Because of the human role, directories can often provide better results than search engines. Yahoo is an example of a directory.

Hybrid Search Engines: To further confuse matters, some search engines also have an associated directory. These are sites that have been reviewed or rated. For the most part, these reviewed sites do not appear as the "default" when a query is made to a hybrid search engine. Instead, a user must consciously choose to see the reviews.

Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/

Yahoo is the web's most popular search service and has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find information easily. The secret to Yahoo's success is human beings. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the web, employing 80 or more editors in an effort to categorize the web. Yahoo has at least 1 million sites listed. Yahoo also supplements its results with those from Inktomi. If a search fails to find a match within Yahoo's own listings, then matches from Inktomi are displayed. Inktomi matches also appear after all Yahoo matches have first been shown. Yahoo is the oldest major web site directory, having launched in late 1994.

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/

Lycos started out as a search engine, depending on listing that came from spidering the web. In April 1999, it shifted to a directory model similar to Yahoo. Its main listings come from the Open Directory project, and then secondary results come from spidering the web. Lycos also feature another directory of web sites called Lycos Community Guides. Sites are automatically listed in these guides using technology from WiseWire, a company Lycos acquired in early 1998. Lycos is one search services, around since May 1994. It began as a project at Carnegie Mellon University. The name Lycos comes from the Latin for "wolf spider." In October 1998, Lycos acquired the competing HotBot search service, which continues to be run separately.

Excite
http://www.excite.com/

Excite is one of the most popular search services on the web. It offers a medium-sized index and integrates non-web material such as company information and sports scores into its results, when appropriate. It also offers one of the best news search services available: Excite NewsTracker. Excite was launched in late 1995. It grew quickly in prominence and consumed two of its competitors, Magellan in July 1996, and WebCrawler in November 1996. These continue to run as separate services. Excite also "powers" the results that appear in AOL NetFind and Netscape Search.

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com/

Like AltaVista, HotBot is another favorite among researchers due to its large index of the web and many power searching features. In most cases, HotBot first page of results come from the Direct Hit service (see above), and then secondary results come from the Inktomi search engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its directory information from the Open Directory project (see below). HotBot launched in May 1996 as Wired Digital's entry into the search engine market. Lycos purchased Wired Digital in October 1998 and continues to run HotBot as a separate search service.

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/

AltaVista is consistently one of the largest search engines on the web, in terms of pages indexed. Its comprehensive coverage and wide range of power searching commands makes it a particular favorite among researchers. It also offers a number of features designed to appeal to basic users, such as "Ask AltaVista" results, which come from Ask Jeeves (see below), and directory listings from LookSmart. Advertisers can also pay to be listed higher within the service. AltaVista opened in December 1995. It was owned by Digital, and now is run by Compaq, which purchased Digital in 1998.

The above mentiond five search engines will undoubtly bring you the most amount of traffic as long as your site is properly submitted to each one. These top five search engines are very heavily advertised in popular computer magazines and recently on T.V. It is not uncommen for any of these search engines to do 50 Million unique searches a day.

Hand submitting your website to these top five search engines is highly recommended. The reason is these high traffic search engines are contstantly changing their submission forms and sometimes they are so busy that you may encounter an error while submitting. If you're using submission software you will never know about the error. With our Deluxe Submission Package we always hand submit each site to these five very crucial search engines.