Web Portals

A Web portal is a site that helps users locate information that is dispersed throughout the Web; a portal presents and organizes information regarding other sites. Typically, this is done through a search engine, which is a program that allows users to find documents based on keywords that they enter into a text field. Th e portal will scour the Web for pages that include the desired keywords and, almost instantaneously, present a list of relevant pages. Most portals do not divulge the specific weighting system used for compiling their search results or how sites are ranked. However, the indices are usually created using a variety of criteria, including information contained
in the HTML code, such as the <title> and <meta> tags, copy found within the body of a site, the popularity (based on site traffic) of a given site, and links to and from a site. A search can return thousands of pages of results containing millions of individual Web pages that include matches to the requested keywords. Because of this, a niche segment within the marketing industry has arisen that provides services to help companies get their URL’s listed in the coveted “Top 10”—the first ten results sent back by search engines (usually page one of the results).

In order to be categorized as a true Web portal, a site needs to provide easy access to other sites—not just information about its own site. Google, for example, is the largest and most visited portal1, and each search for information results in the listing of sites from all corners of the Web. Online superstore Amazon would not count as a portal. Even though it has a powerful keyword-based search engine that visitors use to search for information, the results provided are links only to products that Amazon sells on its own site.

As the starting point for many Web users, portals have become more than just a means of fi nding information through search engines. Portals also serve as a one-stop resource for tools, information, and links. Some portals, such as Google, allow users to select the type of tools and information (if any) they would like to appear on the Home page of the site each time they return. Other portals, like Yahoo! and AOL, have a set off ering of tools and information like e-mail, headline news, stock tickers, product sales, popular videos, and more already built into their framework.

Niche portals are similar to distributed Web portals in that they focus on a specifi c topic. However, niche portals largely provide their own content and allow users to search both on and off the site for relevant information. Th ere are niche portals online for practically any interest that is shared by enough people to support a site. Figure 2-5 features IGN.com, a niche portal for people interested
in games information.

Competition in the Web portal business has been fierce from the early commercialization of the Web. A large percentage of the online population visits a portal on a regular basis. According to Alexa.com, a rating site for the Web, three of the top four most popular Web sites based on traffi c rates are portals as defi ned in this section.