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When Researching Your Family History Don’t Overlook the Minor Search Engines.

The reason some family tree websites, particularly those created by amateur web designers are not found, is because they are not optimized for search engine indexing and ranking. Some larger engines will not index websites that do not have Meta tags or proper title and headings. If they are indexed, such sites will suffer through very poor ranking in the search results. They may even be impossible to find.
Almost 80% of family tree websites submitted to Genealogy Search Australia do not have Meta tags or proper title and headings. They also often do not have inbound links from other genealogy web sites. These links can improve the ranking in the search results. This is very disappointing as the owners of such sites will not get the visitors that they should. Search engines also use these links to find the web site for indexing.
The smaller genealogy search engines usually use a human editor to include the web sites in their index. This allows the editor to add Meta tags to the listing to improve the sites ranking and “findability”. Obviously the smaller engines have less sites indexed which means that you will have fewer pages of search results to scan while looking for sites with clues to your family history. This can actually be an advantage compared to the million page results you may get from the major search engines.
The search words and phrases you use when searching can also help identify sites of interest for you. But remember, the search engine will only identify web sites that include your search words in the meta tags, title, headings and possibly page content. So by using detailed search phrases you run the risk of not finding the web sites that have been poorly designed.
If you are searching by surname, do not be disappointed if your search results do not show that name in the title or description. By showing that web site in the search results, the search engine is indicating that the name appears somewhere and you should open the page and examine the content closely. Your name could be amongst those being researched by the website owner.
Is it time consuming? It certainly is, as all genealogists and family history researchers will attest. But you could be rewarded by finding the information you need on one of the many obscure, poorly optimized family history websites that are “on the web” but not easily found.
Hopefully this article may encourage amateur web site owners to optimize their web sites so that they can be found, thus assisting themselves and others in their family history research.

Article Source: http://www.familyhistoryarticles.com

Jim Hammond is a Family History Researcher who has created the free Genealogy Search Australia search engine and directory to assist new and experienced genealogists and family historians.

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