Optimisation with Google, Yahoo and MSN

Surveys regularly come out showing Google as the main player in terms of its share in the search engine market (70 to 80% of users). Yahoo! comes in second (10 to 20%) and MSN third (5%). See MarketShare Website for more details.

Besides Google, Yahoo! and MSN there are the smaller players, including AOL and Ask. However, you will probably find it’s not worth your while spending too much time and effort on them. Owing to its domination in the search engine market you’re betting off focusing most of your attention on Google. However, in terms of rankings the differences between Google, Yahoo! and MSN are relatively small.

Having said that, there are some large competitors in other countries, with China’s Baidu being one notable example. Google has had to make great efforts to produce localised results in other countries around the world in order to gain more of the market share.

In any event, the major purpose is really to increase ad revenue by building a loyal audience for the search engines and their toolbars. The search engines can only do this by delivering good results to their users. In fact the search engines collaborate in respect of spam and low quality websites, and work together in an attempt to combat these problems. You can look at Google’s Webmaster area to catch up on the latest news and to clarify what is and what isn’t considered spam

When creating your SEO strategy you need to base it on things which will work across all the search engines. You need to pay particular attention to the guidelines, and more importantly you need to deliver a high quality website.