It pays to study the Search Engines

Vive la difference

Here we were, very complacent at the significant progress our site was
making in the search engine placement stakes.

Number 3 on Excite, with a number of hits coming in, number 7 on Northern
Light, no hits from there, and so on. We were starting to get a number of
hits from Google and Fast and then ... we appeared on Lycos, out of the blue
at Number 1, but only on one key phrase 'barnsley accountants' and when I
tried 'barnsley accountant' we fell out of site (no pun intended).

What was wrong, why couldn't Lycos recognise that accountant is in the word
accountants? Why was 'Business Start Up' getting nowhere on Lycos?

In order to solve the problem it was back to basics. What was it reading,
what were the words highlighted in the listing? How did Lycos work. After
all it is one of the major Search Engines and if they are investing all that
money advertising on TV (by the way only 1% of web site hits come from
'off-line' promotion) I should piggy back this campaign and make sure we are
well up on the Lycos listing.

I know, from bitter experience, that Google works on