Major search engines such as Google, Yahoo (which uses Google), AltaVista, and Lycos index the content of a large portion of the Web and provide results that can run for pages - and consequently overwhelm the user.

Ask Jeeves (http://www.ask.com) provides a general search of the Web but allows you to enter a search request in natural language, such as "What's the weather in Seattle today?"

Special tools and some major Web sites such as Yahoo let you use a number of search engines at the same time and compile results for you in a single list.

Individual Web sites, especially larger corporate sites, may use a search engine to index and retrieve the content of just their own site. Some of the major search engine companies license or sell their search engines for use on individual sites.

Search engine placement technology is composed of the following:

• Analysis of your existing Web pages.
• Analysis of keywords compared to various search engine databases.
• Optimization or creation of new pages that includes useful content related to your keyphrases.
• Submission of your pages to the major search engines.
• Monitoring and reporting on your position on each search engine.
• You should look into a web tracker in case your current web host provider does not offer one.