Based on what I've seen, multiple factors are contributing to this problem. The first is the rapid growth of the Web as a whole. Additionally, I've seen more and more Internet novices put their businesses online not knowing that they must both submit their site to the search engines AND monitor it to make sure their pages stay indexed. Any page can be dropped without warning. In some extreme cases e-mailing the search engine becomes necessary when re-submitting alone does not work.

Obviously keeping tabs each week on whether your site is indexed, not to mention all your search positions, is a daunting task to do by hand. That's why the vast majority of sites on the Web are not doing it.

The good news is this spells opportunity for the more savvy Webmasters who not only want to be indexed on the Web, but who actually want to be SEEN in those search engines. See, it's this second part of being found in the search engines which only a small minority of businesses recognize as important.

The study cited that only 34% of all Web sites even included a Meta description or Meta keyword tag! Even though this is the most basic of steps to promote your site to the search engines, a whopping 66% did not even know to do that! Those few that take the steps to both stay indexed and to be found in the top 10 matches will reap the rewards.

Think it's too difficult? Read this newsletter and you'll definitely be more knowledgeable about search engine marketing than at least 76% of the Webmasters on the Web. In fact, read the next article and you'll probably know more than 95% of Web site owners. The popular press rarely reports anything more than the need to create a Meta tag and submit your site. However, as readers of my past newsletters know, there's more to search engine marketing than Meta tags.

                 ← What is this?