The search engine step of website design entails getting your site registered with the Search Engine Companies.

Search engine companies have programs which they refer to as "Spiders" because they crawl around the Internet, cataloging the information on all of the web pages so that people can easily find the information they want.

Submitting your website to the Google, MSN, and Yahoo search engines is free... and since these three search engines handle approximately 80 percent of all search engine traffic, there is usually no need to pay for search engine submission.


Engine Usage
Google 44%
Yahoo 29%
MSN 13%
AOL 6%
"Nielsen Net Ratings" ranks the most popular search engines. The table on the right reflects their latest monthly statistics for search engine usage. Because a web surfer may visit more than one service, the combined totals exceed 100 percent.

Select a Search Engine in the table to visit their website.

Another benefit of listing your site with the most popular search engines (Google, MSN, and Yahoo) is that other less popular search engines utilize the big three when analyzing your search requests.