Top Search Engines

Reviews of the top search engines used online today. Search engine rankings are a very important part of Internet marketing. These top search engines are ranked in order of use, starting with the most frequently used search engines at the top.

Google - Certainly the most used search engine today, Google offers both organic listings and paid listings through its AdWords program. Google puts a heavy emphasis on strong content and incoming links when ranking websites in its organic (free) listings area. The AdWords program is a pay-per-click arrangement and ranking is based both on performance of your links and your bid amount.

Yahoo - Yahoo offers organic listings and paid listings served through Overture. To show up in the paid listings area, sign up with Overture. Ranking for paid listings is determined solely on the price you bid for each keyword. The organic listings on Yahoo are similar to that of Google's, although Yahoo intermixes organic listings from its own directory. Submission to the Yahoo directory can be done by paying a yearly fee to Yahoo, but does not guarantee and certain position within its rankings.

MSN - Currently under development is the MSN search engine, which again mixes organic listings with paid listings served through Overture. Look to the future for MSN to create its own paid listings program and enhance its organic listings algorithm. Currently, rankings are similar to that of Google, meaning they use a similar ranking criteria. Indexing happens much slower than Google, but that too may change once MSN beta search goes live....stay tuned.

Other top search engines:

Ask Jeeves
A9
AOL Search
Teoma
HotBot
AllTheWeb
AltaVista