If you haven't had success in achieving a top 10 ranking in InfoSeek or any search engine for that matter, we strongly suggest looking at the Web sites that did achieve one of those rankings to try and understand why they rated so well. There is one catch you need to be aware of:

The site you are viewing may not be the site that achieved that top ranking.

How can this be? Simply put, it's called the "ol' switcheroo." A clever marketer creates a Web page, usually all text with carefully constructed Meta Tags, comments tags, and body copy, and submits that page to a search engine. If he's done a good job, walla, #1 ranking. Now, the site that achieved such a high ranking is probably not very attractive - often, depending on the search engine, it contains just one word on the actual page, or one paragraph stuffed with keywords, repeated two or three times. Since it is so unattractive, the person who just achieved that ranking will switch out that one Web page and substitute their "real site" complete with graphics and the other trappings of good Web site design.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND this technique. First, it is dishonest since the page a user searches for should be the page they get. Second, you'll get burned when the search engine automatically re-indexes your site which happens periodically without notice. When this happens, you'll immediately lose your hard won position.

One of the first clues that this tactic is being used is that the site title and description displayed in the search summary results are not found anywhere on the actual Web site.

Our point here is this: Before you begin to try and learn from the people who have Web sites in the top positions in a search engine, make sure the site you are looking at is the actual Web site that garnered that top ranking.

Here's a little trick. Before reviewing the top ranked sites for ideas on how to attain a similar or higher rank, submit their URL to InfoSeek for re-indexing. If they used the ol' switcheroo tactic to get that top ranking, they will quickly tumble down the rankings to what should be their true ranking.

Now that you have submitted the top five or ten sites for re-indexing, wait an hour or so, conduct your keyword search again and see who's really on-top. This way you won't be toiling in vein and you have a chance to learn from a site that is deservedly in a top spot.

There is just one occasion when re-indexing a site that shouldn't be at the top of a list won't work. Some really cunning Web site managers use a CGI script to automatically detect a particular search engines spider and then dynamically "serve" a Web site front page that is different than the one that the rest of the world sees - the page that will guarantee them that top rank. There is almost no certain way to tell if someone is using this technique - though there are the same hints as before (e.g., the words that make up the site description and title are not found on the site, and re-indexing the site doesn't cause a new headline and site description to be generated by the search engine).

I don't believe this is a very commonly used technique since its difficult and time consuming to implement, so don't worry about it too much. But do make sure you are competing and positioning against a site that is, in fact, the actual site that was indexed by InfoSeek.

This "switcheroo" trick can happen on all engines, not just InfoSeek. Unfortunately, with other engines, you won't know for days or weeks whether resubmitting would make a difference in their rank.

As far as the legalities of submitting a page other than your own, most of the search engines themselves ask you to submit or "suggest" a "favorite" page from any site, not just your own. If the page has not changed since it was last indexed, their ranking should not change or be affected by the re-submission.

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