Metabot.ru Meta search engine. Russian and English versions.

Mail.ru (formerly known as List.ru) Directory and email services. Free listing in directory database.

Russia on Net - www.ru The very first directory on Russian Internet, founded in September 1995. Russian and English versions. Free inclusion.

Begun.ru The pay-per-click ad placement provider began operating in 2002. Begun uses a sort of simplified FindWhat model, allowing advertisers to bid on keyword phrases and placing pay-per-click ads on search sites and portals throughout Runet. Minimum cost-per-click charge is $0.05, and minimum deposit is $5. If you want to drive traffic to your site via Begun, you have to choose proper keywords, write a text link ad and put in your bid on keywords. Begun's main partners are search engines and directories such as Aport, KM.ru, Refer.ru and Sotovik. PPC advertising currently is rather innovative service on Russian Net.

Virtalog.ru Founded in 2000, directory is designed specifically for exporting its content to other websites. Virtalog includes websites into its index free, but those who want to add directory to their sites should pay $20 to 2,500, depending on how it will be tailored to webpages in terms of design and goods/services categories. However, Virtalog offers free limited content (within any one category), if you agree to place their banner ad on your page.

KM.ru Founded in 2002 by Cyril and Methodius Company that is best known in Russia and other post-Soviet countries for its CD reference books and encyclopedias, site incorporates 20 portals and a daily e-newspaper. Most popular are its directory, and email and Web search services. KM.ru offers free inclusion in its listings. Some 80,000 sites are listed in directory as of September 2003.

Refer.ru The directory began operating in December 2000. Refer.ru not only allows you to add your website, i.e. your home page, but in addition to that some internal pages as well. Since April 2002, Refer.ru has been carrying on advertising campaigns in partnership with Begun. In early September 2003, Refer.ru had over 235,000 URLs stored in its database. Free inclusion services.

Top Uanet Search Engines and Directories

The vast majority of Ukrainian Web resources are in Russian, especially when it comes to news and sales. All government-related sites have content in Ukrainian, some of them post a Russian version, and in a very few cases they have an English version as well. The most popular servers can be found via above Russian search engines and directories, but Ukraine has its own national search sites that are much more helpful in doing country-specific searches.

МЕТА.ua Search engine and register (directory), founded in 1998. META is designed to search Ukrainian portion of Internet as well as Ukraine-related sites on global Web. META conducts some 100,000 searches daily. By mid-September 2003, META had indexed more than 5.5 million URLs and included about 25,000 websites in its register. To be listed in register, a website must pertain to Ukraine, say geographically or by content. META offers free inclusion services and declares that a site will be listed in search database within one to two weeks. The indexing process, however, may drag on for months unless you place their banner ad on your website.

UaPortal.com.ua Directory and news site in Russian and Ukrainian. Founded in April 2000. The free inclusion service may take weeks or months for your site to be added, but an about nine-dollar fee cut down your long wait to 24 hours. In addition, UAPortal recommends placing their banner ad on your site, promising shorter review time. There were over 16,000 websites listed in directory in early September 2003.

Google.com.ua Google in Ukrainian. See Google.com.ru above.

UaPlus.com A new search engine that began operating in late June 2003. Developed by Miraline Co. in cooperation with Kiev National University, Linux-based project uses its own unique moduls instead of Apache, MySQL and other popular software. UAPlus has indexed over five million pages within Ukrainian and international portions of Web. No submission required.

ASearch (search.avanport.com) Search engine and directory in Russian and Ukrainian. Founded in 1998. Free inclusion. Only Ukraine-related sites are accepted and added to directory. The search engine indexes Ukrainian portion of Internet. ASearch claims to be leader, holding most powerful search engine in Ukraine. However, in September 2003, site showed its statistics of November 2001. That time they had about 18,000 websites listed and over two million pages indexed. ASearch's job section still is very popular with employers and job seekers.

UaPort.net The site is an ELVISTI project that combines a directory with an information search system on Ukrainian Web. Free inclusion. Upon submission, UAport invites a website to place their button in exchange for a shorter consideration procedure. The directory had some 6,000 websites listed in its 22 categories in early September 2003.

TopPing.com.ua Directory, rating system and counter. Free inclusion. Placing TopPing button (visible counter) on a site is essential for those who wish to use rating and counting services free.

Alpha-counter (A-counter.com.ua) Directory, rating system and counter. Founded in 1998. Free inclusion. Free invisible counter is available, but you need to place a text reference to provider. More than twenty thousand websites stored in database as of September 10, 2003.

Bigmir.net Directory and rating system. Founded in 2000.

Another big problem found with sites I’ve indexed was absence of a description tag. Meta tags are used primarily by search engines. If you do not supply a description for your web page then search engines will not have any information to put into its database in regards to a description for that particularly page. Obviously, if you have a title and description that is relevant to that page you are more likely going to gain respect of a search engine. The search engine FOUND what it was looking for. When you loose your keys, do you want to spend 5 minutes searching or just 1 minute? The easier you make it for search engines, less time and resources spent on their end will make up in how you rank with them.

If you have a website or are a web master, look at each of your web pages meta information. Check to see if your meta tags conform to rules set out by major search engines. Once you optimize your pages, you will find that your efforts will be rewarded with higher rankings.

Rob Wiley has spent the last 13 years serving the media industry in fields involving graphic design, marketing, website design and development. His experience has been shared with numerous businesses that have profited from his advice and skills.