Special "optimised" pages are created which are designed to rank well when a user enters a certain keyword, or search term, at a search engine. This is achieved by inserting the keyword at strategic places in the html code and text on the page. Special (non spam) techniques can be used to make this optimisation invisible to the user.

A directory is maintained by human editors who vet submitted sites and organise them into categories. Yahoo is the most well known directory. Programs called spiders, which crawl the Internet, indexing content automatically, maintain an index such as AltaVista.

A meta tag is a section of a web page which is invisible in a browser but readable by the search engine indexing 'spiders'. The tags contain a description of the page and a list of relevant keywords. The search engines use this information to help categorise and rank the page in their indices.

The search engines use a complex set of algorithms to rate the relevance of each page. Factors which they take into account include the presence of keywords in the content, the page titles and meta tags. Other criteria, such as site popularity, can also affect the ranking.

The length of time varies from engine to engine. The indices are indexing millions of new sites every day, as well as checking the integrity of sites already listed. In our experience, this means it can take from one to 12 weeks before a newly submitted site shows up in the listings.

Over 90% of all search engine traffic is driven through the top 15 engines, and for most sites this will provide the most cost-effective solution. Our standard service targets these engines, but if your site has a specialist audience and you wish to target a specific engine, we will be happy to quote.

'Stealth' promotion uses special programming techniques to serve one set of pages to the search engine indexing program, and another to normal users. This practice is considered as unacceptable practice by search engines and is, as such, a high risk strategy. Sites discovered using this technique are usually removed from the index altogether, occasionally being banned for life. Spokespeople from a number of top search engines have publicly stated that web sites caught practising 'stealth' technology will be banned for life - most top search engines are actively involved in developing anti-stealth technology. For these critical reasons, VHS does not employ stealth technology - we are confident that our promotion techniques are thoroughly researched and proven to deliver top placements without compromising your sites long-term status within the search engines.

Each engine uses a different set of criteria to calculate your site's position relative to a search phrase. Search engines are very secretive about how they achieve this and are constantly changing their 'qualifying' rules.

Occasionally search engines change the algorithm they use to rank search results. Furthermore, some engines tend to weight rankings in favour of newly submitted sites. For these reasons our specialist search engine promoter regularly checks the rankings of your site, and will re-optimise your pages if an engines algorithm significantly changes. At VHS we also resubmit your site regularly to the engines, so it always appears fresh.

Our research shows that it is becoming increasingly difficult for sites to get into Yahoo using the free submission service. Additionally there is no longer any free listing service for Looksmart. Unfortunately both these 'paid for' services only guarantee a review (usually within a week) with no guarantee of a listing. We recommend that all clients undertake both Yahoo and Looksmart services for the following, very important reasons.

1) In terms of increasing targeted visitors, both engines are VERY important. Yahoo is consistently in the top 10 visited sites on the net. Looksmart claims to reach over 55% of the UK online population, influencing popular UK search sites such as MSN and Excite. For a relatively small once-off fee your site will end up reaching far more people in the long run.

2) Both sites, especially Yahoo, carry a significant amount of 'kudos'. Sites listed on these engines are generally seen by searchers as well established.
In technical terms, through a process called 'link popularity', listings on these directories will, to a certain extent, boost your search ratings on other search engines. Search engines measure link popularity by quantity of links and also by the QUALITY of these links. Therefore a link from Yahoo will favourably contribute to a web site's link popularity and search rankings.

3) Charges will become the norm in the near future, it is important to get into as many key search engines as possible before your competitors do.

Yahoo is notoriously choosy about adding new sites to its directory. Sites have to measure up to its stringent quality standards and poor designs are seldom accepted. Submissions in highly competitive categories are particularly difficult, and a site is more likely to be listed if it is the only one of its kind.

In addition to building a campaign around keyword phrases, search engine promotion is an ongoing necessity as search engines are forever changing their ranking methods and refreshing their databases. Once a position has been obtained in an index it must be maintained and, wherever possible, improved. Without maintenance your site position will deteriorate and drop out of the top 30 positions and frequently out of the index altogether.

Such free software will submit your site to thousands of search engines but will not help you achieve good rankings and will not optimise your site for individual search engines. Here we will optimise your pages both for the keywords you wish to be found for, and for the engines we target. It is important to keep in mind that the engines we target account for 90% of all search engine traffic. Our service maintains high search engine rankings generating significant amounts of 'targeted' traffic to your site.

There are a number of possible reasons. You may be seeing results which are customised for your locality - for instance Yahoo serves different results to UK and US users. Our reports show the positions as listed in the engines without any regional variations, as we find this provides the most accurate picture internationally.

It is obviously very important to choose the key words that you think your potential audience may use to try and find you. These should be relevant to the content of the site, and as specific as possible. Our experience has shown that people are using more targeted phrases to search. For example 'golf holiday travel agents' will have much shorter list of relevant list of results than 'travel'. At VHS we will work closely with you to determine the key phrases that will get the best results for both you, and your customers.

Yes. You will be listed on, Altavista.co.uk, Aol.co.uk , Excite.co.uk, Lycos.co.uk , Yahoo.co.uk. VHS also indirectly submits your site to other UK search engines such as AskBob and UKPlus as they use secondary engines such as Infoseek and AltaVista for their listings. Popular portals such as FreeServe, Virgin.net, BTInternet and LineOne also make use of engines such as Inktomi - if your site is listed high in Inktomi, it will feature well in the portal's own searches.

Inktomi provide the database that services many popular search engines, MSN, Hotbot and Looksmart to name a few. In this respect Inktomi is an important place to get listed in. For an annual charge Inktomi will guarantee a re-indexing of the page every 48 hours. This ensures that such pages are constantly present in the index. Pages can still be submitted for free, but it is highly likely that they will drop out of the database within a week, if indexed at all. We believe that the minimal yearly cost is well compensated by a constant presence in all the many search engines and portals that Inktomi serve.

This can be caused by a number of factors. Some keywords, for instance 'discount books' are more competitive than others. Because of this, we employ a rigorous keyword research plan at the beginning of the promotion to help you choose keywords which are targeted and have a good chance of appearing in the top few pages of results. Some engines also limit the number of pages listed per site to keep the size of their indices down and will only include pages optimised for some of your keywords. You will also find your site is probably listed for fewer keywords in the directories than it is in the indices.

Search engines can regularly drop sites from their index. Your site may have been dropped from the index after the report was created. To compensate for this behaviour, VHS automatically submit your site to all search engines every two weeks, so it will probably reappear presently.