Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Submissions
There are literally hundreds of companies out there that will give you incredible claims of being able to cheaply submit your page to thousands of search engines. These companies are a waste of time. They typically use scripts to submit your page and most of the thousands of engines to which they submit are FFA (Free For All) link directories that will generally bring in little, if any, traffic for your site. Also, the real engines they submit to will generally ignore your submission. The best and most fail proof method is to submit the sites yourself. Most engines are free to submit to and have a special page where you can submit. See the list below that gives you direct links to the submission pages.

Note: This list is current as of 8/4/02.

• Yahoo
  1. Go to directory under which you want to submit a site.
  2. Click the "Suggest a Site" link.
• Non-business categories are free to submit to, but it can take awhile to get listed. Business categories will cost you $299 a year.
• Open Directory Project (dmoz)
  1. Go to http://www.dmoz.org
1. Browse to the directory where you think your site belongs.
2. Click the "Add Url" link at the top of the page.
• This is a key directory to get into as a graet deal of search engines use their database to show results.
• Google
  • Go to: http://www.google.com/addurl.html
• They will generally find your site to index for their database, even if you don't manually submit it.
• They use the dmoz results as part of their database.
• Lycos
  • Go to: http://searchservices.lycos.com
  • They allow you to submit one page for free and additional pages for a charge.
  • Free submission takes 4-6 weeks and is not guaranteed.
  • They use alltheweb for a portion of their results.
• alltheweb
  • Go to: http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php3
• NorthernLight
  • Go to: http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html
• Altavista
  • Offers a variety of paid submission services as well as a free basic submit.
  • Go to: http://www.altavista.com/sites/search/addurl
• Inktomi
  • A good pay for submission service. Cheap to do and very effective. They provide their site database to many major search engines.
  • More info: http://www.inktomi.com/services/web_search/submit.html
  • First URL is $39/year; additional URLs are $25/year
• Excite
• Uses multiple providers for their search results including: alltheweb, Ask Jeeves, Inktomi, About, Looksmart, FindWhat, and Overture.
• Netscape
  • Uses the dmoz
• AOL Search
  • Uses the dmoz
  • Uses Inktomi
• Iwon
  • Uses Inktomi
• MSN
  • Uses Inktomi
    

Testing and Resubmission
Once you submit your website, it is important to follow-up and see if you actually get indexed. If you are not indexed within a month of submission, you should go ahead and resubmit. In addition, it is important to test your rankings and massage your meta tags to ensure you get optimal placement.

With some time and work you can really improve your site's rankings in the search engines. Just remember that it takes months on end in order to get listed. Don't give up and keep at it! We hope you've enjoyed this article and found it useful.

Nick Ladd,
Webmaster-Affiliates.net

[ Previous Page ]