Search engines often change their ranking and optimizing algorithms often and as a result may cause results to become unstable. This page categorizes each search engine and reports to you the status of their stability.

Search Engine Stability Disclaimer: The research and findings below are independent reviews and should only be used for informational purposes Search Engine Stability Alexa Stable - No recent changes in algorithms Altavista Stable - Delays anticipated due to high submission volume (2-4 Weeks) AOL Netfind Stable - Delays anticipated due to high submission volume (4-6 Weeks) Canada.com Fairly Stable - Indexes the main page submitted within 2 weeks, deeper pages take 4-6 weeks to spider Excite Fairly Stable - Slow in indexing new sites, expect a 4-6 week delay Hotbot Stable - Indexes the main page submitted within 2 weeks, deeper pages take 4-6 weeks to spider Infoseek (Go) Fairly Stable - Restructuring to become an entertainment portal, expect delays in indexing of up to 3 months Google Fairly Stable - Delays anticipated due to high submission volume (6-12 Weeks) Looksmart Stable - Express Paid listings indexed within 2 days, regular paid listings within 8 weeks and unpaid secondary listings share the same database as Hotbot (see Hotbot above) Lycos Unstable - Delays anticipated in indexing new sites, expect a 6-8 week delay Magellan Fairly Stable - Shares the same database as Excite but indexes slower than Excite's spider Northern Light Unstable - Delays anticipated in indexing new sites, expect a 8-12 week delay Open Directory Project Stable - Large volume of editors decide if your site will be indexed between 1-3 weeks Overture Stable - Paid listings indexed within 3-5 days, secondary listings share the same database as Hotbot (see Hotbot stability above) Webcrawler Fairly Stable - Shares the same database as Excite but indexes slower than Excite's spider Yahoo! Stable - Has used same original algorithms since inception, however anticipate delays of up to 12 weeks when not using express service