How to get a high search engine ranking on AltaVista.

Although now a shadow of its former self, AltaVista can still generate some reasonable search traffic if you achieve a high ranking for popular terms. However, its search index is now the same as that appearing on Yahoo, following the purchase of AltaVista in 2003.

A website can still be submitted to AltaVista through the free submission option or by the paid inclusion programme offered by the Yahoo network.

Submitting a site to AltaVista.

The free submission option on AltaVista is via Yahoo and therefore requires free registration to Yahoo before a submission can be made. Once submitted, pages can take anything between 1 and 4 months to appear and even then, if Yahoo has not verified the site with a visit from its own spider, the new listings may not yet appear within the search results.

The original paid inclusion programme to the AltaVista search engine has now been discontinued since the search engine lost its own database following the acquisition by Yahoo. However, you are still able to make a fast submission onto the Yahoo network by paying for inclusion through the Search Submit Express option.

This is currently the one main paid inclusion scheme now remaining amongst the main search engines and offers a number of options for individual pages or bulk submissions. Submissions cost from $49 per URL for a 12-month subscription, plus there is also a pay-per-click element for traffic generated - read more about pricing here. There is some debate about the advantages of using this scheme and the benefits it can provide to a site's ranking position across the Yahoo network.

Factors to consider for a high search engine ranking on AltaVista.

The method of achieving a high ranking on AltaVista is now the same as for Yahoo and the other search engines using the Yahoo/Inktomi database - which are essentially the 'traditional' optimisation factors included on a site.

Factors to consider to achieve a high ranking include:

• Search terms used within the Title tag and the Description metatags. The keywords metatag is less important but should still be used.
  
• Page content, position and emphasis of keywords
  
• The number of inbound hyperlinks from other relevant and quality websites.

To find out how your website can achieve a top ranking on AltaVista and the other top search engines, contact the web search workshop for more information or request a FREE site assessment to see how well your website currently performs.

A brief history of the AltaVista search engine.

Learn more about getting a high ranking on the other main search engines: FAST, Google, HotBot, Inktomi, Lycos and Teoma.

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