Press Release: Search Engine Watch Launched

By Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch, Jun 9, 1997

Search Engine Watch provides much needed search engine news

Every browser bug one could imagine was widely reported earlier this year, but hardly a word was mentioned about the fact that several major search engines were not actively crawling the web for weeks or even months. Listings were going stale, but no one knew.

Likewise, little has been mentioned about how large sections of the web are becoming "invisible" to search engines that haven't kept pace with developments such as frames. Or how many "free" web pages provided by Internet access providers may be intentionally passed-over by search engines.

Search Engine Watch is a new site that's designed to keep search engine users and web developers informed about these matters. Likewise, Search Engine Watch provides the latest news and information to help make the searching easier.

Search Engine Watch is an extension of the successful web site, "A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines." Since April 1996, the web site and its associated monthly mailing list, "The Search Engine Report," have been gems appreciated by thousands of web developers. The site was the first resource on the web to help webmasters understand how search engines indexed their web sites.

However, the site was also attracting librarians, researchers and others keenly interested in understanding how well the search engines were working, from a technical point of view. This provided the impetus to relaunch the site as Search Engine Watch, in order to serve both web developers and search engine users.

The site is produced by Danny Sullivan, an Internet consultant, writer, and recognized search engine expert. He has written articles about search engines for NetGuide Magazine in the US, and Internet Magazine in the UK. His work with "A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines" has been recognized by awards, positive reviews and increasing traffic to the web site.

"Everyone depends on search engines, and it's important to understand how well they're working, and when they're not," Sullivan said. "Search Engine Watch will strive to provide the best and latest information for the benefit of both search engine users and web developers."

Some of the highlights within Search Engine Watch are as follows:

The Search Engine EKG: It graphically shows how well, or poorly, each major search engine has crawled a test site since Dec 1996. The performance provides an indicator of how well they may be crawling the web at large.

The Search Engine Response Times: Shows the current time it takes to get questions answered from search engine support staffs.

The Search Engine Strategic Alliances Chart: Tracks major partnerships between search engines and high-traffic sites. This is one of the only places where a current and historical look at key partnerships can be found.

Major and Minor Search Engines: A succinct summary of the major and more prominent minor search engine players can be found here, along with a bit of history about how they came to be.

Search Engine Resources: One of the best collections of search engine-related links on the web. Resources ranging from search engine profits, to tutorials, to reviews of the major search engines can be found in this extensive area.

A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines: Contains the award-winning material that has proved useful to web developers and anyone who wants to better understand how search engines work. The parts of a search engine are explained, along with how they rank web pages. Designers find tutorials on using meta tags and making frame-sites search engine friendly.

The guide also contains general "search engine design" tips to help webmasters ensure that their web pages are not lost in the search engine listings. None of the tips involve spamming methods, with the guide spurns. A section even explains SpiderSpotting, or identifying when a search engine has visited your web site.

Search Engine Watch opened Monday, June 9. Users may reach it at
http://searchenginewatch.com/