- 80% of people seeking to travel world wide use internet search engines (Google, Yahoo Search etc.) to find services and vacation destinations.
- Any random survey of popular search engine query criteria for Ecuador (Ecuador Travel, Viajes en Ecuador, Galapagos Vacations, Vacaciones Galapagos etc.) will find Ecuadorean companies in the one to five percentiles within the first fifty results.
- Foreign owned “Dot Com” companies (satellite websites that present information and collect fees from advertisers and use fees for a presence on their site) and foreign owned travel agencies dominate search engine query results.
- In today’s world, Ecuador and the Galapagos are prestigious destinations for travelers. The promotion of Ecuador and the Galapagos by “Dot Com” companies and foreign owned travel agencies is doing more harm than good for Ecuador and those destinations.
- The domination of search engine query results by “Dot Com” companies and foreign owned travel agencies has resulted in the loss of the ability of local operators to contact clients directly through the internet, forcing them to work for international travel agencies or pay the Dot Com companies for a presence on their web sites.
- Search engine result rankings can be improved by “optimizing” a web site and following specific practices.
Search engines are not the problem. Again, search engines try and accommodate their clients needs by providing the most pertinent websites for a given web search query. There was also a time when people seeking travel went to travel agencies. Investigate companies.
In today’s world, Ecuador and the Galapagos are prestigious destinations and people seeking to travel go to the internet. Dot Com companies and international travel agencies are the new age pirates, exploiting the people and countries of vacation destinations.
Search engine result rankings
After a web site has been “optimized” the following evolving criteria are then used by the search engines to “rank” a website: Traffic to the site, time spent on the site, size and dynamics of the site, age of the site and links from other “quality” sites to the site. Again these criteria are evolving as search engine companies combat websites trying to manipulate their results.
-Time spent on site.
-Age of site.
-Links to site.
Ecuador’s Website “Rankings”
-In the first fifty results of a Google search for “Ecuador vacations” on June 23, 2009 there was not a single Ecuadorean company or website listed.
Ecuador’s website rankings do not improve when searching in Spanish.
- In the first fifty results of a Google search for “vacaciones en Ecuador” on June 23, there was not a single Ecuadorean company or website listed.
The Ecuadorean Ministry of Tourism’s “portal” website created to help small Ecuadorean companies came up on page sixteen of the search results for “vacaciones en Ecuador”, ranked number one-hundred-fifty-one.
Ecuador Is Victimized By Search Engine Result Criteria
The Ecuadorean Ministry of Tourism’s “portal” website was created to help small Ecuadorean companies. That site, all the companies within and the country of Ecuador (along with many other countries throughout the world) are victims of search engine ranking “criteria” and the resulting priority presence of Dot Com companies and international travel agencies in search engine results.
Eighty percent of all visitors who arrive in Ecuador contract over the internet with international travel agencies outside of Ecuador for their travel.
Improving Website “Rankings”
-Galapagos family vacations-; page 9 #80; page 2 #19
-Galapagos vacations-; page 9 #80; page 1 #10
-Galapagos island tours-; page 16 #158 page 1 #10
-Land based tours Galapagos- page 5 #48; page 1 #3
-Customized tours Galapagos page 6 #56 page 1 #1
Improving Ecuadorean Website “Rankings”
There is no reason why any internet search involving Ecuador travel, the provinces of Ecuador or tourist destinations in Ecuador that that website should not be on the first page of results.
-To improve availability for search engines:
In today’s world people seeking to travel use the internet. To do this they use search engines. Search engine results rankings are critical for “in bound” (receiving) countries and tour operators.
Ecuador and Ecuadorean companies are virtually not represented in those search engine results rankings.
March 31st, 2012 
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