Optimise for which Search Engine?
That is, optimise your website for which of the five? Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask or AOL? Obviously Google has the greater share of search traffic - but the rest combined are more than equal. The problems are: Google is the golden shot, but it’s also the hardest to impress. If it were just a matter of Google or the rest, then ‘the rest’ would be the choice. But each of them are Google wannabees and have different criteria to rank highly. What’s the pecking order and what do they each like? It’s Google followed by Yahoo, MSN (don’t know why - they have bizzarre results), Ask and AOL. Going for gold,.. sorry,… Google…, also has good results with Yahoo - both value external links and good internal structure, wheras MSN, Ask and AOL value factors which it has to be said are sub-optimal - the domain name is a significant factor which favours early domain name speculators and companies with mucho vonga to buy them. It has to be Google. They ‘get it’ and the others don’t. They’re not just ahead - they’re way ahead - so far in the distance that the others just won’t reach them easily - and not in the forseaable future.