Are
search engine submission services useful? What
do they do? According to the Webmasters Reference
"there are sites that claim to submit your
web pages to thousands of search engines. These
search engine submission services always claim
that this is what you must do to drive serious
traffic to your site. I've even seen a site that
claims to submit your site to over 800,000 search
engines and directories! These are usually lots
of Free For All links pages. Don't submit to them
- you will not get any traffic, you will get lots
of spam and the truth is that the real search
engines, the ones that you need to be listed in,
will probably penalise you for using them.
It’s
time for you to know the real truth about search
engine submission services. So here it is –
there are five search engines that you need to
be listed in. That’s right, five! Add to
that three directories that are useful but not
"required" and you possibly have eight
search engines and directories that will actually
send you traffic. So, is it worth paying anything
to have your site submitted to these eight search
engines and directories?
You
may think that you need to use a search engine
submission service to submit your site every month
so maybe it’s worth paying. You do not need
to submit your site each month. It’s actually
a ridiculous claim made by some submission companies.
Why would you need to re-submit your site if it’s
already listed? It doesn't make any sense! You
actually don’t need to submit your site
to search engines at all. You can, but it won’t
get you listed any quicker.
OK,
the five search engines that you need to be listed
in are Google,
AltaVista,
Inktomi,
AllTheWeb
and Teoma.
You may be thinking "what about AOL, Lycos,
HotBot, Excite and so on?". These sites all
use the results of others. For example: AOL uses
Google, Lycos uses AllTheWeb, Excite uses results
from a number of others, AskJeeves uses Teoma,
HotBot uses Google, Inktomi, AllTheWeb and Teoma.
So, how do you get listed? Inktomi and Teoma only
accept paid submissions – or that’s
what they’d have you believe. AltaVista
and AllTheWeb offer free submissions but you get
listed quicker if you pay. Google is free.
Should
you pay a search engine submission service to
be listed in the search engines? I generally recommend
no because you can get listed for free. Also,
Google is by far the most popular search engine
so why pay search engines who will send less traffic?
However, if you need to be listed very quickly,
it may be worth the investment. If you don’t
want to pay, you can get still listed in all the
search engines. They all crawl the web with a
robot to find pages. They do this by following
links. Something that Inktomi and Teoma don’t
tell you is that they do add sites that haven’t
paid. In fact, they do it all the time.
Therefore,
to get listed in the search engines that ask you
to pay, exchange links with sites that they have
already indexed. If you find sites that rank highly
for keywords that relate to your site and exchange
links with them, all the search engines will crawl
your site and include it in their index. It may
take a few months but they will do it. Just make
sure that the sites that these search engines
think are important have got links to you –
this makes you important! We refer to this exchange
of links as networking and it is essential for
optimum web site promotion.
Google
is much simpler. If you have a couple of links
pointing to your site, Google will probably find
you. They crawl the web at the beginning of each
month and update at the end so you could get listed
within 3 weeks or so. Sometimes, it can take about
7. Just make sure you have links pointing to your
site. If you submit your site to Google, they
do actually list it within a few days but they
then remove it from their database – unless
it updates very frequently. Even if you do submit
your site and it gets crawled, Google won’t
really index it unless it can find links pointing
to you. So, you can get listed in all five search
engines without submitting your site at all. Also
submitting doesn't get you in quicker (unless
you pay).
Now,
I mentioned three directories. These are Yahoo,
LookSmart
and DMOZ. Yahoo
and LookSmart require payment. I generally don’t
recommend submitting to them unless you can afford
it. If your marketing budget is tight, don’t
bother paying. You actually get listed on Yahoo
and LookSmart by being indexed by Google and Inktomi
respectively. If someone uses the search function
at Yahoo, the results are from Google. LookSmart
can be useful because their results are used by
MSN. So, if you can afford it, go for it. If not,
don’t worry too much.
The
other directory is DMOZ. It’s free to get
listed but it can take months before they include
you. The beauty of being listed here is that their
directory is used by many other very popular sites
such as Google, Netscape and so on. You must submit
to DMOZ manually. Find the right category and
submit your site. DO NOT under any circumstances
re-submit. I've read so many times that you should
wait a month or two and then re-submit. Don’t.
Guess
what re-submitting to DMOZ really does. It pushes
your site to the bottom of the list! Each time
you re-submit, you are actually adding to the
time it will take you to be listed. So, submit
your site, wait six weeks and if your site isn't
listed then go to http://www.resource-zone.com/.
They have a special forum there that allows you
to ask about your submission. Keep in mind one
thing – these people are volunteers. Be
very polite, don’t make demands and they
will help you out. Please note: Be sure to check
DMOZ thoroughly to make sure you aren't listed.
They may have put you in a different category
so look around. Also, their search function is
not always synchronized with their database so
don’t rely on that to find your site.
The
places listed above will bring you the vast majority
of your traffic. There are other search engines
and directories around which you can submit to
but they generally won’t send you any traffic.
The only other thing you should look at are regional
or topical directories that relate to your site.
Finally,
here is something else that is amusing about submission
services. For years, AltaVista actually removed
any site that was submitted if they already knew
about it. They assumed that the site must have
changed so they’d delete all pages relating
to it until they had time to crawl it again. This
could take weeks. Strangely, the automatic search
engine submission services never seemed to mention
this. Remember that just getting listed in the
search engines will not bring you traffic. You
must have good listings."
In
summary, the above information in regards to search
engine submission services appears to be informative
and accurate. The search engine submission information
is so straight forward and forthright, that we
have tried not to alter it. Hence, as listed above,
there is no need to pay a search engine submission
service to submit your site to thousands of search
engines and directories. Through proper neworking
and links to other web sites, eventually your
web site will get indexed by the major search
engines. However, we recommend manually submitting
to the DMOZ directory which Google utilizes. We
also recommend the expedited Inktomi Inclusion
submission service which you pay for in return
for listing and indexing your web site within
48 hours. This will provide you with immediate
results provided that your web site is properly
optimized. Contact us if you have any questions.
We recommend that you have a professional, who
is trained in search engine optimization, assist
you with reviewing your web site prior to submitting
it to the search engines. There are certain techniques
such as spamming that you want to avoid in order
to prevent your site from being penalized or removed
from the search engines and directories.
In
conclusion, nothing can compensate for poor web
site promotion and lack of relevant content. Search
engines and directories can not help you if you
don't optimize your web site. Professional search
engine optimization and proper networking are
essential to the successfull search engine ranking
and search engine positioning of your web site.
Whether you are creating a new web site or optimizing
an existing one, keep in mind that your web site
should be designed around search engine optimization
in order to drive traffic to your web site. Be
sure to inquire if your web site is being designed
to promote your products or services and that
whoever is assisting you with your web site design
& development is utilizing search engine optimization
techniques. If you are looking for professionals
who are knowlegable about web site promotion and
search engine optimization in addition to web
site design, please contact us. TerenceNet, Inc.,
a publicly traded company, offers a full range
of Internet marketing services for our clients
including ebusiness consultation, web marketing
strategies, search engine optimization, web site
design & development, logo design, graphic
design, ecommerce solutions, shopping cart, web
site hosting & technical support, domain name
registration, perl and cgi scripts, networking,
pay per click advertising services and targeted
email marketing. |
