Looking Beyond Google: Meta-Search Engines Can Help Online Marketers

Read this interesting article on looking beyond Google, Meta-Search Engines Can Help Online Marketers By Bill Platt
For businesses that market wholly or partially online, it may seem that three words are the only way to get more customers: Search engine optimization (SEO). Typically, the search engines being referred to are: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. These three engines have almost become interchangeable with the phrase “do a search”, so much so that the word “Google” has entered the English lexicon as “find information”. There are actually hundreds of search engines, not just the Big Three (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) that many Internet users think of. By focusing only on the most well known search engines for your online marketing strategy, you may be missing out on as much as 30% of the billions of searches being done online every single day. While not the oldest search engine on the internet, Google does have the reputation of being the granddaddy. However, it is worth investigating alternative search engines – niche engines, meta-search engines, and human-powered engines. Niche search engines focus their searches on a particular subject matter, such as blogs (http://www.blog-search.com) or articles (http://www.goarticles.com).
Meta-search engines compile results from multiple search engines (http://www.dogpile.com,http://www.widow.com). Finally, human-powered search engines are composed of directory pages with link and general information,put together by humans who search for the most relevant content (http://www.mahalo.com, http://www.dmoz.org). These alternative search engines tend to have pretty high page ranks, which give more credence to the fact that online marketers shouldn’t overlook them. There is also the fact that some Internet searchers do not want to use Google because of personal or political views. Because of Google’s popularity, it can (incorrectly) be perceived as having a monopoly on the search engine market. That perception, combined with opposition to a seemingly growing “corporate world”, turns off some potential customers and eliminates your potential to reach them, if you focus only on Google or other big search engines. As part of SEO, using keywords to bring in consumers is all the rage. Businesses spend a great deal of time and money researching keywords, keyword density, and effects on page rankings in results lists. Guess what? It’s not only a pain for the businesses to constantly be looking for which words may get them more hits and higher rankings; it’s quickly becoming over done.
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