OT - How do search engines work?

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"

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 rules. Google is God. All else is a pale imitation of Google.

Google works this way: the more sites link to yours, the higher your
rating is. The higher a site's rating is, the more credit you get for
its being linked to you.

This works far better than even the guy who dreamed it up could have
hoped or expected or dreamed. It works wonderfully well. It is Adam
Smith's Invisible Hand turned loose on information.

If you don't have a Google tool-bar installed on your browser, your
life is slower, more complicated, and less rewarding than it might
otherwise be.

Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words. Go look: www.google.com


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put CUB in subject line)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words. Go look: www.google.com

True, but I like having Yahoo as my home page, because of their
up-to-the-minute news coverage.

A throw-back to my newspaper days, I guess. I knew I'd have to add
newspapers to our order when I saw a big story hit in Yahoo!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay then make news.google.com your home page or keep Yahoo and get the
Google tool bar.


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:R59xb.117245$Dw6.540124@attbi_s02...
Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words. Go look: www.google.com

True, but I like having Yahoo as my home page, because of their
up-to-the-minute news coverage.

A throw-back to my newspaper days, I guess. I knew I'd have to add
newspapers to our order when I saw a big story hit in Yahoo!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote:
Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words. Go look: www.google.com


True, but I like having Yahoo as my home page, because of their
up-to-the-minute news coverage.

A throw-back to my newspaper days, I guess. I knew I'd have to add
newspapers to our order when I saw a big story hit in Yahoo!

also see
http://news.google.com/



WW

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Posting your question to a bunch of pilots? ;^)

Why not ask Google directly?

Jay Honeck wrote:
Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words. Go look: www.google.com


True, but I like having Yahoo as my home page, because of their
up-to-the-minute news coverage.



Google has news. And the "news" tab is much easier to find than yahoo's.

Cub Driver wrote:


Besides, Google has the simplest, most elegant home page on the web.
It consists of 38 words.


Absolutely!

Does google have pop-ups (on its home page or its returned list-pages)?
My system suppresses them, so I don't know if it has them or not. I
was pretty sure that Yahoo was awash in them, or is that not correct???

(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 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