November 2004Website
Submission - Just the Facts
Over 90% of US search engine traffic is driven by Yahoo! or Google
owned search technology - source: Search
Engine Watch. Additionally Ask Jeeves
owns around 5% of the traffic. You may hear the names of many other search engines, but
most of them are powered by the above search engines in one way or another. For example,
Yahoo! owns Inktomi, AltaVista, and AllTheWeb. All three of those search
engines are powered from the same database as Yahoo! Search. A few meta search engines
also drive a decent amount of traffic.
Meta search engines do not crawl the web, but combine the results of other search
engines. If you are listed in the top few engines then you will also appear in meta search
results. Vivisimo is an example of a meta search engine.
There is no reason to purchase search engine submission software. Any search engine
worth being listed in will usually list your site if you get just a few incoming links.
Also people who claim to resubmit your site monthly are trying to take advantage of you.
Search engines will keep your site in their index if you have a few decent inbound links.
I do not even submit sites to search engines anymore, but here are links to the only
five search engine submission pages I would potentially use.
I rarely submit pages to search engines since I know they will follow links and index
the pages (that is what search engines do). Anyone who tries to sell you submission
software is ripping you off.
If you want to submit your site (please note submission does not guarantee inclusion)
then these are the locations where you can. I usually just submit to directories and let
the search engines find me.
- Submit to Google (free) - powers around
half of US based web search.
- Submit to Yahoo!
(free) - powers over 40% of US based web search. Requires a free Yahoo! id. Yahoo! also
has a paid inclusion program by the name of Overture Site
Match.
- Submit to Ask Jeeves / Teoma
($30) - powers around 5% of web search. Ask Jeeves / Teoma is the only major search engine
which does not have a free site submit option. Eventually (usually around 1.5 months) they
will list your site in their search results if you have a few inbound links.
- Submit to Gigablast (free) -
powers a much small percentage of search than the other engines, but it is quick to index
pages when the site submit is working.
There are two directories which are generally stand above all others in distribution
and importance.
There are a ton of smaller directories on the web. Many of them require a reciprocal
link to be included. If a general directory requires a reciprocal link to be listed in
then it is usually not worth listing in.
The cost for submission into most second tier directories is usually less than $50. In
addition it is easy to become an editor for many of these second tier directories. Some of
the more popular second tier directories are:
Some sites have a directory type structure but are focused more on article based and
have individual editors which frequently write articles covering their topics.
Web Guides are generally extremely selective in what sites they will list.
Many directory are built to cover niche topics. Sometimes these links are more valuable
than links deep within general directories since your specific category may be only one or
two links away from the home page.
Business.com and the MSN Small Business Directory are
business directories, and there are literally thousands and thousands of other topical
directories. I think one time I even found a nail care directory. You can search for
directories specific to your site by searching some of the top search engines for various
descriptive keywords in your topic (for me some examples might be seo, marketing, search
engine marketing, search engine optimization...) and adding phrases to them such as add
url, submit site, resources, websites. More tips on how
to find web directories.
You can find tons of other directories looking through the following resources.
There are tons of free links here and there on the web. Some good examples would be:
- Leaving testimonials for people (sometimes they will link to your site).
- Providing donations to help out other websites or organizations.
- Putting your website in your signature in SEO discussion
forums (or any other type of forum).
- Leaving comments on blogs (Journals such as Fast Company, Inc., or any of the other
thousands or millions of blogs on the web). Some of them go through redirects, but some do
not. I have had a decent number of customers contact me based on comments I have left in
blogs.
- Writing articles that you submit to sites like Buzzle or sites related to your topic.
- by Aaron Wall, author of The SEOBook .
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