Hate them or love them, but we still have to face the fact that over 80 per cent of all traffic that websites receive comes from the direction of search engines.

As infuriating as it is there is really nothing much you can do when the all-powerful search engine wake up one morning and decide to suddenly change the rules without any warning, causing your agonizing hard work in terms of SEO to be flushed down the drain. Nobody seems to care that you spent months and some small fortune to get your site up there in the first place.

But actually there is plenty that you can do.

Search Engines: How Smart Webmasters Are Fighting Back

You can get your site listed in alternative search engines and web directories that apart from giving you valuable links pointing back at your site will also drive respectable daily traffic in the direction of your site.

While it is true that one of the alternative, less well-known sites will be able to drive the sort of massive traffic that some websites enjoy from the big but sometimes arrogant boys, there are a few ideas you can use and you will soon find that you hardly miss the big boys.

For instance while one of these small search engines and directories such as http://www.mostpopularsites.net/, http://www.joeant.com/, and http://www.best-websites.net/ will be able to give you only a handful of traffic every day on their own, by combining quite a number, the figures will quickly add up. A good place to find this collective power of search engines and directories is at http://www.best-web-directories.com/.

Search Engines: Entertain As Many Alternative Methods As You Can Find Because Nobody knows Who The Heir To The Throne Will Be

The really fascinating thing about all these different search engines is the fact that a wide range of different methods and rules are used to rank site popularity. For instance Yahoo! are betting heavily on their new Web 2.0 social search engine where people recommend sites that they have found interesting and useful to others.

Nothing lasts forever, and this is even more true online. What this means is that the only constant thing we can expect on the net is change itself. Nobody knows what the next really big search engine criteria is going to be. And more importantly what particular search engine will come up with it. So what every smart webmaster and blog owner is doing is entertaining as many search engines as they can find. With all their different and widely varying criteria, nobody knows who the heir to the big 3 search engines throne will be.

Conclusion

Taking the alternative way, as far as search engines are concerned is the smart way to guarantee traffic to your site for many years to come. It allows webmasters to ensure that they have not placed all their eggs, dangerously into just one basket. Instead you will find that they have numerous friendly search engines out there working very hard for them.

About The Author
Glenn Ford is a professional SEO expert and owner of http://www.seo-gurus.net/.
ford_article@comcast.net

Bloggers Against Abuse

September 27th, 2007

Check out Blogging Mix for more details or you can visit BlogCatalog's Discussion Thread regarding the event!

Search engine optimization, known far and wide as SEO, is an important factor in the success of websites small and large. No matter how popular you think your site is, it's vital that you and your team put some thought and energy into optimizing your search engine rankings and your visibility within search results.

Do you know that there are some illegal search engine optimization techniques? Prevent these pitfalls before being sued by others. Let me share with you some of these illegal ways that you should not be following.

Using Trademarked Keywords in Domain Names and META Tags
You should not be using trademarked keyword such as YAHOO, GOOGLE to register as your domain name to attract customer. This is totally illegal. It violates federal trademark law, which prohibits the use of someone else's trademark,
It is illegal as it will cause a likelihood of confusion among consumers.

Although it is not necessarily illegal to use trademarked keywords in your META tags. But you could get sued, and people have. It all depends on why and how you are using the trademarked keywords. If you used the keywords in what is deemed a deceptive manner, then you're likely to lose your case.

Pagejacking
Pagejacking is copying someone else's web page and submitting it to the search engines as your own, in hopes of getting high rankings. Pagejacking is no more than stealing copyrighted content.

Doorway pages
Doorway pages are web pages that are created for spamdexing, this is, for spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as bridge pages, portal pages, zebra pages

Deep Linking
If a site you intend to link onto your webpage has stated that linking is prohibited, or requires permission first, it will be wise not to link the page.

Deep Linking Within A Frame
If you link to another site's content by displaying it within a FRAME on your site, and your ad in another FRAME, you will be asking for trouble.
What you're basically doing is stealing other people's content to generate advertising revenue. This is strongly not recommended.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/
About the Author:Patrick Sia is the man behind Income-Internet-Business.com. He's a passionate believer in the power of technology to better the lives of everyone and his passion and drive are hallmarks of his attitude to doing business. Check out http://www.income-internet-business.com/ for his step-by-step guide to startup a successful internet business.

For more blogging tips and advices, visit BLOGGING MIX. Enhance your blog and blogging skills with Blogging Mix.