Search Engine Watch Membership Page

Search Engine Watch publishes a variety of original articles and resources to help search engine marketers. Much of this is free, and our home page will guide you to much of this material. There is also content exclusively provided to those who become Search Engine Watch members.

A 6-month membership costs $69 -- or sign up for a full year for only $99 and save nearly $40!

In return, you'll receive access to Search Engine Watch's Members-Only Area, full of tips and information about improving your traffic from search engines. A guide to premium content within the Members-Only area can be found below.

Members also receive an exclusive email newsletter, the Search Engine Update, twice per month. In addition, they can read special members-only editions of some news articles not available to the general public.

We're confident that you'll love being a member -- so confident that we'll refund your membership fee within 30 days of signing up, for any reason. So there's nothing to risk and everything to gain -- explore being a member today!

Membership Benefits

A Search Engine Watch membership gives you access to premium content in site's Members-Only Area, which contains the information below. You will also receive an exclusive twice-monthly newsletter, the Search Engine Update.

How Search Engines Work Section
Submission tips, how each search engine crawls, spam penalties, how summaries are created and more details for the following search engines:

• Google
• Yahoo
• AOL Search
• MSN Search
• Ask Jeeves/Teoma
• Overture
• Open Directory
• AltaVista
• AllTheWeb
• HotBot
• LookSmart
• Lycos
• Netscape Search

More About Section
A more in-depth look about some subjects discussed within the public site, including:

• Search Engine Marketing Articles
  Compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web covering the general topic of search engine marketing, which encompasses both promoting sites via free search engine optimization tactics and through paid search engine advertising routes.
• Search Engine Optimization Articles
  Compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web offering tips on better optimizing pages for search engines, in order to increase your free, natural or organic traffic.
• Search Engine Advertising Articles
  Compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web offering tips on getting more out of paid placement and paid inclusion listings on search engines.
• Outsourcing Search Engine Marketing
  Compilation of resources and articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web that provide advice about outsourcing search engine marketing.
• Local Search Articles
  Compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web offering about how search engines are targeting local search as a way to gain users and also increase revenues.
• Contextual Advertising Articles
  Compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web offering about how search engines sell contextual ads that appear on web pages, rather than in response to keyword searches.
• ABCs and URLs
  Alphabetical titles and keywords in URLs aren't secret weapons. This page explains why.
• Dynamic Pages And Search Engines
  Search engines have particular problems with sites that deliver pages via databases, CGI processes or other dynamic means. This page examines the situation in more depth and offers some workarounds.
• Hiding JavaScript
  How to keep JavaScript from interfering with your page's relevancy.
• Link Analysis And Link Building
  Explains how search engines make use of links from across the web to find pages and rank them in relation to searches. Includes tutorial on how to build links in an appropriate manner to generate traffic.
• Researching Keywords
  Guides you through a process of learning how people may be searching for your site by using resources at Overture and other major search engines.
• Search Engine Spamming
  A summary of common techniques that may get you in trouble with the search engines.
• Submitting And Encouraging Crawlers
  Explains how to ensure that more of your content with a web site is indexed by crawler-based search engines.
• Tapping Into Natural Traffic
  Covers easy steps you can take to naturally increase organic traffic from search engines.
• Blocking Crawlers With Robots.txt
  Explains how the robots.txt standard lets you tell search engines which web pages NOT to index via a text file placed in your server's root HTML directory.
• Blocking Crawlers With The Meta Robots Tag
  Explains how to use this alternative to the robots.txt file method of blocking crawlers.
• Capitalization Issues
  Tips on covering the bases without getting into trouble for when people search using various forms of capitalization (relax, most search in lower case).
• Cloaking
  Explanation of how cloaking works to deliver pages to search engines that are different than what users see. Covers pros, cons and resources.
• Countries And Languages
  Explains issues about using domain names and page language to please country-specific search engines.
• Doorway Pages
  Explains basic guidelines about avoiding problems if using doorway pages to attract visitors.
• Keywords Used To Find Your Web Site
  How to analyze your log files to determine what words people are using to find your site.
• More About Meta Tag Lawsuits
  Is it safe to use trademarked terms in your meta tags? This article examines the pros and cons to help you avoid trouble.
• More What People Search For
  Tips on how to gather search terms quickly from search engine resources plus a compilation of articles from Search Engine Watch and around the web, on the topic of search term research.
• Reader Q&A
  Compilation of past issues of Reader Q&A, where Danny Sullivan answers questions from readers about search engines.

Fact Files Section
This section has information that marketers and others may find useful, including:

• Search Engine Acquisitions
  Links to articles about major search engine-related acquisitions.
• Search Engine Banner Advertising
  Compilation of articles about how search engines have sold traditional advertising units such as banner ads.
• Search Engine Demographics
  Resources about the demographics of those using search engines.
• Search Engine Partnerships
  Resources about alliances and partnerships.
• Search Engine Revenues
  Resources about stocks, profits and financial strategies.
• Search Engines And Retailers
  Resources about commercial partnerships.
• Search Engine Talk
  Links to mailing lists, discussion areas and other venues about search engines. Topics range from search engine secrets to improving search results.
• Search Engine Timeline
  Key events relating to search engines, in chronological order.
• Promoting Search Engines
  Compilation of articles about how search engines have advertised themselves to the public.
• Portals
  Resources relating to the portal nature of many search services.
• Portal Features Chart
  Shows which portal services such as free e-mail or home pages are offered by the different search services.