Smaller Search Engines - Good Reasons not to ignore them

Published: 4th of December 2006

These days, many web designers and SEO gurus act as though Google were the only search engine on the web.

Whilst Google is undoubtedly the most commonly used search facility on the web, online marketers and promoters would be well advised not to ignore the large number of smaller search engines on the internet for a number of reasons.

Targeted Niche Market Traffic
Most marketers fail to appreciate the compound value of all those specialist search sites scattered around the net.
Let’s take property sales as an example; if your site is focussed on home sales, prospective customers are more likely to come across it in a property search engine or directory than anywhere else.
They may initially search Google to find these directories, but focussed property searches will be carried out on niche sites rather than a major search provider.
The simple fact is that smaller search engines can prove to be powerful sources of pre-qualified visitors which, though not as numerous as those entering through the Google door, will help to boost your overall conversion rates.
Lower Pay Per Click Costs
Many small businesses see the pay-per-click advertising facilities offered by Google, Yahoo and MSN as an affordable means of advertising their wares on the World Wide Web, although this perception is slowly changing in the wake of bidding auctions and click-fraud scandals.
So, whilst the big three may be able to get traffic through your door, they will oftentimes charge you an arm and a leg in the process.
Consider for a moment the fact that although smaller search engines may not produce the short-term visitor numbers brought by Google, MSN and Yahoo, they will provide far more visitors per advertising dollar in the long-term.
Raw Linking Power for Google PR
Although Google PR is not the be-all and end-all of search engine promotion many professionals make it out to be, a high ranking on the ‘Greenbar Madness’ scale nevertheless looks good in a visitor’s eyes whilst also providing a certain boost to your site’s search rankings.
By ignoring smaller search engines your site is missing out on a large number of inbound links from high PR web sites such as Jayde (PR 6), Exactseek (PR 7) and Bizweb (PR 6) amongst others.
So if you are after a higher score on that little green bar, the effort is well worth it.

For a list of smaller search providers, you may wish to look at:

When you consider the time and effort which usually goes into promoting any given web site with the big three operators, the relatively small amount of exertion required to get listed in the smaller internet resources is well worth the effort.

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