Search Engines (was RE: Using Images for Links)

I want to jump in here and say that, in my case, I actually tend to use
Excite more than I use any of the others (Yahoo being second).  My
confession is that I don't really understand how Excite indexes, but I do
know that it usually gives me the exact results I'm looking for.

If I'm searching for something on, say, animated gifs, or antique jewelry,
I'll put a search in Yahoo, because I'm pretty sure there will be a
category for the subject.

But many of my searches tend to be for word strings.  My most common type
of search is, say, I hear a song on the radio and have NO idea who it is.
I can't even understand most of the lyrics, but I know they say something
like, "I get knocked down and I get up again," and later on say something
about, "Danny Boy."  So, I type in something like this (including the quotes):

  lyrics AND "Danny Boy" AND "get knocked down" AND "get up again"

The first two hits are about a band called Chumbawamba.  Both have part of
the lyrics listed as a description, showing me that I've found exactly what
I wanted.  I checked the first page and it has no meta tags or invisible
text, so I'm guessing Excite indexes the whole page.  While this may be
annoying for web designers, it can't be beat (IMO, but I'm open to
suggestions!) for these kinds of things.  If they changed how they did
things, I'd be REALLY upset.  (Not to mention, I'd still have no idea who
sang this song...)

Cherie


At 10:27 AM 1/16/98 -0500, Susq. Health Sys. wrote:
>> Next time you search for something on a search engine using
>> META tags and comes up with nothing that is related, check the top few
>> results' META tags and you will see what I mean. If we don't police
>> ourselves then they will.
>
>I fully understand the problem of us page builders spamming the meta-tag
>keyword list and writing bogus descriptions.  However, Excite's and
>Lycos'(in particular) soltions to this problem is a case of the cure being
>worse that the disease.
>
>
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