OT - How do search engines work?

Paul Tomblin wrote:
In a previous article, "Jay Honeck" said:

When I type in "Iowa City Airport" at the Yahoo search screen, our "History
of the Iowa City Airport" webpage pops up second on the list -- which is all
well and fine.


Google uses a secret "Page Rank" technology that is mostly based on how
many sites link to yours. If people like your site enough to link to it a
lot, Google will rank it higher. Unfortunately there are people out there
who cheat, or "game the system" if you want to be charitable about it.
What they do is put up thousands of web pages that consist of nothing but
links to their customers, in order to improve their customers "Page Rank".
Google is in a constant battle to find the cheaters and eliminate the
artificial boost they give to their customer's Page Rank, though, so
paying these people is ****ing your money away. Far better would be to
get your friends on this newsgroup to put a link to your site on their
personal pages or blogs.

I'm 70% sure Yahoo is still using Google technology, so what I say about
Google is probably true of Yahoo. But since Google is the only search
engine that matters, I wouldn't worry about Yahoo if they're not using
Google.


It must be a pretty exotic algorithm.

In google, when you try "Suites start at" (phrase from the home page),
plus "Alexis", you get 2 hits to a hotel in Seattle, but nothing else.

Does that mean that if nobody links to you, you may never even show up
in an search-list??

In a previous article, said:
Paul Tomblin wrote:
Google is in a constant battle to find the cheaters and eliminate the
artificial boost they give to their customer's Page Rank, though, so
paying these people is ****ing your money away. Far better would be to
It must be a pretty exotic algorithm.

In google, when you try "Suites start at" (phrase from the home page),
plus "Alexis", you get 2 hits to a hotel in Seattle, but nothing else.

Does that mean that if nobody links to you, you may never even show up
in an search-list??

Possibly. Or possibly Google's imperfect algorithms decided that Alexis
Park was page spamming. Alexis Park is definitely indexed by Google - if
you type "Alexis Park" it shows up second, after another Alexis Park
resort in Las Vegas. Strangely enough, typing "Alexis luxury suites" gets
the AirNav listing of Alexis Park as the 6th hit, but the next relevant
link (ie not to the one in Las Vegas) is on the 4th page there is a Yahoo
Travel page.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
IMAP is just not a very rich protocol.
-- Steve Conn, Exchange Server product manager for Microsoft

Does that mean that if nobody links to you, you may never even show up
in an search-list??

Possibly. Or possibly Google's imperfect algorithms decided that Alexis
Park was page spamming. Alexis Park is definitely indexed by Google - if
you type "Alexis Park" it shows up second, after another Alexis Park
resort in Las Vegas. Strangely enough, typing "Alexis luxury suites" gets
the AirNav listing of Alexis Park as the 6th hit, but the next relevant
link (ie not to the one in Las Vegas) is on the 4th page there is a Yahoo
Travel page.

So how does "Underground Weather" manage to come up "Numero Uno" on a search
for "Iowa City Hotels"? They CERTAINLY aren't a hotel, and they CERTAINLY
aren't in Iowa City!

This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa City are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"! What kind of a stupid
search engine would exclude the ONLY websites that matter to the person
searching for a hotel?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In a previous article, "Jay Honeck" said:
So how does "Underground Weather" manage to come up "Numero Uno" on a search
for "Iowa City Hotels"? They CERTAINLY aren't a hotel, and they CERTAINLY
aren't in Iowa City!

No, but lots of people link to them, and they do have links to hotel
listings on the page.

This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa City are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"! What kind of a stupid
search engine would exclude the ONLY websites that matter to the person
searching for a hotel?

Because the first couple of pages of hits are almost entirely hotel guides
and travel agencies. It makes sense that people who travel to more than
one place will link to a guide or an agency rather than to one particular
hotel.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Sometimes, when a luser makes an unreasonable demand, the best thing
to do is let them have exactly what they ask for.
-- Joe Zeff

Because the first couple of pages of hits are almost entirely hotel guides
and travel agencies. It makes sense that people who travel to more than
one place will link to a guide or an agency rather than to one particular
hotel.

Until I got into this biz, I had no idea what a total sham those on-line
hotel listings were. Most people don't realize that hotels must PAY to be
on those so-called "impartial" hotel guides! Worse, services like "Orbitz"
and "Travelocity" are nothing but giant scams. They demand 15% of whatever
a hotel charges for each room! This means that any consumer can always get
a MUCH better deal simply by calling the actual hotel, and speaking with
their local reservation desk.

The absolute best way to find a hotel on-line is to check the local
convention and/or visitor's bureau website. Almost every city has one, and
virtually every hotel/motel/B&B belongs to it -- so you get a true and
accurate listing of area hotels, not just the ones who decided to pay for
their position.

BTW: I just tried entering "Iowa City Inn" and **BINGO**, there we are! I
guess the Yahoo search engine is only seeing the title at the top of our
webpage, not the meta-tags I so carefully selected... Time to put "hotel"
in our name, I guess! :-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

(Gotta insert here that the Alexis in Seattle is one whiz-bang,
top-of-the-line hostelry).

Bob Gardner

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:CC8xb.316648$Fm2.331014@attbi_s04...
Because the first couple of pages of hits are almost entirely hotel
guides
and travel agencies. It makes sense that people who travel to more than
one place will link to a guide or an agency rather than to one
particular
hotel.

Until I got into this biz, I had no idea what a total sham those on-line
hotel listings were. Most people don't realize that hotels must PAY to
be
on those so-called "impartial" hotel guides! Worse, services like
"Orbitz"
and "Travelocity" are nothing but giant scams. They demand 15% of
whatever
a hotel charges for each room! This means that any consumer can always
get
a MUCH better deal simply by calling the actual hotel, and speaking with
their local reservation desk.

The absolute best way to find a hotel on-line is to check the local
convention and/or visitor's bureau website. Almost every city has one, and
virtually every hotel/motel/B&B belongs to it -- so you get a true and
accurate listing of area hotels, not just the ones who decided to pay for
their position.

BTW: I just tried entering "Iowa City Inn" and **BINGO**, there we are! I
guess the Yahoo search engine is only seeing the title at the top of our
webpage, not the meta-tags I so carefully selected... Time to put
"hotel"
in our name, I guess! :-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay

Went to Google and searched for "hotel Iowa city".

Got lots of sites that contained the names of Hotels, Motels, pup
tents, etc.

Why don't you go down those sites and contact each one and see what it
takes to get listed on them (probably money????)

Must be a hundred or more sites you could fit into.

Went 8-9 pages looking and didn't find a descrete listing for your
establishment???

If I were coming to Iowa City, I'd search for either "hotels (motels)
iowa city" or "Iowa city hotel". Would guess you should want to fit
into one or both of these descriptions? Don't think your 'name' is
well enough known US wide that you could just use it as a search
index??

Loads of luck and have a good Thanksgiving.

Big John





On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 20:40:25 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

Does that mean that if nobody links to you, you may never even show up
in an search-list??

Possibly. Or possibly Google's imperfect algorithms decided that Alexis
Park was page spamming. Alexis Park is definitely indexed by Google - if
you type "Alexis Park" it shows up second, after another Alexis Park
resort in Las Vegas. Strangely enough, typing "Alexis luxury suites" gets
the AirNav listing of Alexis Park as the 6th hit, but the next relevant
link (ie not to the one in Las Vegas) is on the 4th page there is a Yahoo
Travel page.

So how does "Underground Weather" manage to come up "Numero Uno" on a search
for "Iowa City Hotels"? They CERTAINLY aren't a hotel, and they CERTAINLY
aren't in Iowa City!

This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa City are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"! What kind of a stupid
search engine would exclude the ONLY websites that matter to the person
searching for a hotel?

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
snip
This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa
City are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"! What kind of a
stupid
search engine would exclude the ONLY websites that matter to the
person
searching for a hotel?


I typed:

"Iowa City" + hotel

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g3...wa-Hotels.html

Iowa City hotels: Read Iowa City hotel reviews including resorts ...
.... Sponsored links. Iowa City hotel and vacation packages *. ...
General price range: US$
35-50. Holiday Hotel @ Iowa City, Iowa City, Compare prices with:
QuickCheck, ...
www.tripadvisor.com/ZipFinder-z52240.html - 65k - Nov 25, 2003 -
Cached - Similar pages

Your Inn is # 2 once I open the page.


If I add an "s"
"Iowa City" + hotels
I then get Weather Underground site.

--
Montblack

Jay Honeck wrote:

This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa City are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"!

Are you literally typing in "Iowa City Hotels", complete with quotes? Are you
typing in Iowa City Hotels with no quotes? The first will get you a listing of
only those sites that have something very close to "Iowa City Hotels" somewhere
on the site; you're searching for the string. The second would get you a listing
of sites that have the word Iowa, the word City, or the word Hotels. The more
of these words they have, the higher in the list they are. If you type in +Iowa
+City +Hotels, you'll get a list of all web pages that have all three words on
the page.

None of these is likely to be what you want. No search engine is going to do
what I think you want.

If I want to find hotels in a city, I will either use the Yahoo menus to get a
list of hotels in that city, or I will use the Maps feature of Yahoo to get a
map of the town and pick out hotels from the "nearest business" feature menus.

George Patterson
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can
be learned no other way.

So how does "Underground Weather" manage to come up "Numero Uno" on a
search
for "Iowa City Hotels"? They CERTAINLY aren't a hotel, and they
CERTAINLY
aren't in Iowa City!

This whole thing is so stupid. 95+% of the hotels located in Iowa City
are
NOT coming up when you type in "Iowa City Hotels"! What kind of a stupid
search engine would exclude the ONLY websites that matter to the person
searching for a hotel?

Possibly because the word "Hotels" doesn't appear on your page. I bet the
word "Hotel" does though.
Didn't try it out though.
Paul