Relevancy of webworldindex.com vs. google

[brianzajac]

Reading from another post, Janeth suggested using the service http://www.webworldindex.com. However, I did some initial searching and here's what I came up with:

Keyword Search: Naples website design

Web World Index: On the first page, I couldn't find any really relevant sites pertaining to web site design in naples, florida. In fact, 1st on the list was a very spammy site: Naples Florida Real Estate by Rossi.

Google: Most of the positioning was for sites pertaining to web design...my company included.


My question is this: With all the "unfairness" that Google offers, why should we go to a site like web world index? And, if not them, who? Altavista was also mentioned. Do you think they have better relevancy?

[minstrel]

To answer the first (and "title") question, I think it's great to see new directories and search engines entering the arena - it's hard to see how more competition is going to hurt anyone. However, let's be realistic... even if they are by internet standards an "instant hit", it's going to be a while before webworldindex is a serious challenger to Google.

As for alternatives to Google, first I don't accept the criticism or complaint that Google isn't relevant, but you should be promoting your site on other search engines as well, including AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, MSN Search, etc.

[joelkatona]

I had the same concerns about the relevancy of results for one of my keyword phrases “seo tools”. Just like brianzajac I could not find any relevant results on the first page.
The point is, maybe the results are not as relevant as Google’s because of their search methods, but by submitting your site you can be one of the fist site to register with the keywords you are targeting and there is no reason why your site should not rank well. I had just submitted my site, I shall wait and see, I won’t pass judgment on this directory until our site is in their index.
I agree with minstrel you should not put all your eggs in one basket, there are still some alternatives out there including new directories like http://www.webworldindex.com.

[brianzajac]

You guys bring up a good point...I never put all my eggs in one basket...in fact, I strive for new areas each day for online and offline marketing. However, your suggestions bring up another subject: spam. In either of your experiences, have you seen a jump in spam at any of the search engines you've submitted to? Or, do you think those just mosltly/all derive from the services offering submissions into thousands of search engines?

[janeth]

Hi brianzajac,

This is my point we everyone uses one search engine like Google they get big enough to decide who stays in business and who goes out of business.

I like http://www.webworldindex.com because there new and you can send them an email about a problem and get an answer back the same day.

They are working hard to build up there site and love to here about ways to improve it.

They are also upfront about what there looking for.

When joelkatona had a problem I emailed them to ask the question and got the answer back in a couple hours.

Here is what was said

Our search searches in this order;
1. keywords
2. title
3. headings
All the above must be in metatags or the search will come up empty. If you type a search word or phrase like: seo tools, it will try and find seo first. If it doesn't find seo, it will then find tools.
If anyone had submitted to us and used seo as a keyword, it would have found the page.
I think the main missunderstanding about our search engine is that people don't understand we are building our own data base. Anyone can pull results from dmoz, altavista, aol and more but we pull from our own. It cannot be as good as google that has millions of websites and google doesn't even read meta tags any more. They search content. With a metasearch like google uses, you can do that. With a directory like we use, you can't.

I guess it all comes down to preference.

Now I like Altavista because they do return good results and could get big enough to compete with Google if people got behind them. I get a lot of traffic from both these sites and that is why I choose these two and also I like the results I have seen so far.

[minstrel]

Now I like Altavista because they do return good results and could get big enough to compete with Google if people got behind them.
Actually, at one time AltaVista was bigger than Google, bigger than most, in fact.

What happened to them? Well, several factors reduced their status but one of them (certainly not the only one) was the same problem Google is stuggling with now - their very prominence at the time in the SE market encouraged website owners and SEO specialists to target them to try to find ways to manipulate the results.

Whoever happenes to be in the top 2 or 3 for search engines at any one time is going to be the main target for the spoofers...

[dmcgill]

Hello all,
Jeeze, compaired to Google... I don't know what to say. I will say this though, why not compare us with exactseek or genieknows.com or one of the smaller directories. Sort of like trying to compare a little red wagon to a HumVee don't you think?

Web World was started by us because we wanted a place to submit the sites we created and give them a better chance of being found. The data base is tiny compaired to google but it is all ours. Every site, (except the first returns at the top of the search results)are sites that are in our data base.

Almost every other small search engine out there have very small data bases but supplement thier search results from other data bases. Genieknows pulls from 25 other data bases, kanoodle pulls from google mostly. Anyone can do that, pay a bunch of money for a great search tool with secret algorithms and you have your own engine. The advantage to that is advertising I guess.
Google is still and will remain one of if not the best search engine out there. I am waiting to see what Bill Gates next move will be with MSN but at present, Google has the best. If you want to find something very spacific, Google will have it.

An advantage of being listed with us at Web World Index is that Google crawls us all the time and take our listings and return them most of the time much higher than thier own data base.
So.. thanks for taking a look and hope to see your listing soon. Google was brand new once too you know and look at them now. They over took the market. Someone in another thread was speaking about regulating google. I sure hope that doesn't ever happen. Business is business and they must run a tight ship.

Dmcgill

[janeth]

Google did not start out the biggest they had to work hard to get there. The problem is that they have become to big.

If enough people would get behind the smaller companies maybe we could help push on of those to be big enough to make a difference

[minstrel]

Google did not start out the biggest they had to work hard to get there. The problem is that they have become too big.

If enough people would get behind the smaller companies maybe we could help push on of those to be big enough to make a difference
I agree - that is always the solution in a democracy - if you don't like Product A, get behind Product B - and if there is no Product B, then make one.

On the other hand, if Product B becomes as big as Google, they will have the same problems Google is having now. It's a little like having a majority government in a parliamentary system - it probably works best when no one has real dominance in the market. But then, we don't get to decide that directly so we work with what we have...

[janeth]

If you can get three or four companies around the same size then it is a lot better then what we have now.

If you look at this http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/20375.htm
Well, to add to the Google madness, I've just spotted Froogle product links being inserted into the top of search results. Look at:

http://www.google.com/search?q=above+ground+pools

You should see a Product Search line where directory or news tags often appear, then product listings coming below that.


Then you will see that Google is trying to figure out the best way to not be the biggest any more.

[joelkatona]

Since my last post in this thread, our site got indexed in http://www.webworldindex.com, and I am please to say under the keyword phrase we are targeting “seo tools” we got listed on the first page.
They also must have changed something in their search algorithm after janeth sent them an email about my experiences with their search results.
When the first time I searched for the single keyword phrase “seo” I got no results except for a few sponsored listing, now there are about 124. Thanks dmcgill keep up the great work.