While the "Yahoos" and "Googles" of the search world may stand out firmly in the minds of the average Jamaican webmaster, it's important that they don't overlook smaller local search engines and directories that exist primarily to serve the Jamaican market. It's not uncommon to find surfers who prefer using these regional (local) search engines and directories so that they won't have to wade through the inaccuracies and non-targeted commercial content that is often served up by the more global search properties. What were once unbiased global information search services are now (in general) sophisticated marketing systems where cash speaks louder than content; thus causing many Surfers to bypass this and use regional sites.

There are other even more important reasons why you should have your Jamaican web site listed locally - (a) Global search engines such as Google, Inktomi and FAST regularly spider these sites, so it's an easy way for your site (especially if it's new) to be 'found' and indexed by them (b) They are a source of traffic that you wouldn't otherwise be getting, so why let it go to waste.

Try to get listed in these Jamaican engines and directories.

TOP5JAMAICA (www.top5jamaica.com)

Top5Jamaica is a search directory offering links to web sites with Jamaican / Jamaica-related content. The sites are sorted by category and with almost fifty different categories to choose from, from the seldom-visited to the extremely popular, you're sure to find what you're looking for there. No, this is not a shameless plug for a site that I own; people actually e-mail me with regularity stating how useful a resource it is.

NETSEARCH JAMAICA (www.netsearchjamaica.com)

Netsearch Jamaica is a search engine and portal all in one. It offers a quick and easy search option, a comprehensive directory sorted by popular categories, and quick links to popular Jamaican web sites. Online since 1998, it ranks under 400,000 for ALEXA.COM's measurement of popular web sites, thus making it one of the more popular Jamaican properties online.

JAMAICA LIVE (www.jalive.com.jm)

A relatively new Jamaican search portal that details in its search results the cumulative number of hits that each of the listed sites has received since being added to its database. Jamaica Live also allows Surfers to rate (vote on) the quality of its listed sites.

Other engines and directories

www.jamaicazone.com - a brand new Jamaica-specific search engine. Who to tell how popular it may become in the near future, so it might be well worth it to get listed there now.

www.nlj.org.jm/docs/jamdir.html - the National Library of Jamaica's listing of web sites, it has been online for quite a few years, offering links to hundreds of Jamaica-related sites.

www.caribseek.com/Jamaica/ - a sub-section of the popular Carib Seek Caribbean portal, it offers a simple and easy to use directory of Jamaican web sites.

Sandor Panton ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is a Jamaican currently working as a Search Engine Optimizer for an Intenet Marketing Company in Ontario, Canada. He is also the owner of www.top5jamaica.com, a Jamaican search portal.