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Site Owner's Articles & Tools: Search Engines
by George Conklin (posted December 2002, updated July 2003)
Divergent Submission or Free Do-It-Yourself Submission?
For those of you that know me personally, it's probably no secret that you can do Search Engine Submissions yourself at little or no cost. The secret is how to do it right so that your site places well, without jeopardizing your ranking - or even worse - getting your site banned or black listed. There are a large number of services out there for your consideration, generally paid submissions run anywhere from $30 to $1500. So which one is right for your business? Free or paid? Which ones work? Which don't?
More Is Not Necessarily Better
Generally speaking, more is not necessarily better. Search Engines have changed and having your site listed in over 1,000 or even 800,000 of them (yes, I have seen sites offering to submit to over 800,000 search engines!) does not necessarily help in getting your site found. Simply because of the nature of Search Engines now, I refuse to make any guarantees. But what about those 800,000 search engines, why doesn't that help? Consider this short list of search engines for an idea why more is not always better:
- 2Look4It
- A Classified Site
- Aarons Free Advertising Site
- Ananzi South Africa Search Engine
- Attitude's New Zealand Search Guide
- Australia Wide Business Directory
- "Bob's your Uncle, eh!" Canadian Genealogical Search
- FindLaw LawCrawler
- Gameguru Search Engine
- Harrold's Search Engine
- Sams Page Of Links
- Search Cajun
- Search Singapore Directory
- Tenny's Amazing Barrel of Links
The idea here is not to belittle any of these search engines since some of them are certainly valuable to some web surfers and site owners. Your target audience is most likely one of the 50 States, a region or city inside of one of the 50 states, or all 50 States. If it is not, then you are likely targeting an audience in your own country, province or metropolitan area. Even considering the International audience, imagine the list above as it pertains to a London business with one location, locally selling hand-made clothing. Now, regardless of your location or product/service, imagine a list like the one above with 1,000 or 800,000 such search engines. Will you likely be found? Possibly. Will the person that found you be able to use your product or service? Not if they are in South Africa, New Zealand, Canada or Singapore.
Focus, Focus
Keep this in mind - with all of the search engines available, focus on a set group such as "The Big 8" or "The Big 10" search engines in your area. Study them, study their listings, and study your placement (if any) in their listings. Does your site place in their search engine at all? If so, is the listing likely to be found by a human being? Are you in the first page of returns? Are you in the top 50? Are you in the top 30? Are you in the top 10?
Be Careful
With diligence, research and,in some cases, unending SPAM email resulting from some submissions, you can 'do it yourself'. However, keep in mind that falsely marketing your site, spamming search engines, and other web site design decisions can result in poor ranking for your site, not being listed in some search engines, or even being black-listed or banned from a search engine! Below are some free services you may use if you choose to do free submission.
Recommendation
Your industry is your specialty. You have trained hard and learned the lessons in your industry. So have I. Go with the experience - it pays in the end.
Netmechanic.com
Netmechanic.com is a great reference for webmasters, and has a lot of good information and services available on their site - some free, some not. Netmechanic's Info is great, and plentiful. They have a great Webmaster Tips Newsletter section that overflows with Q&A.
Netmechanic has changed their offerings again - that's about the only reason I personally don't purchase their services - they have dropped a $1,500/yr service to submit and optimize your web site with professionals reviewing your page(s) and making recommendations. They still do offer (Dec 2002) Search Engine Power Pack including Optimization Service for $99/yr; or you can drop some of the Search Engine Power Pack services they offer and opt for their Search Engine Submission for $45/yr.
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SearchHippo
I like that SearchHippo still has a free web site submission option, which is getting harder and harder to find in recent years. You can visit their "Submit/Modify URL" link near the bottom, and submit a for free, although they do ask that you link back to them, as I have done using their "little widget", below.
Legal Notice & Disclaimer
In plain English this content is provided AS-IS, and is a result of experience and research. Divergent Web Design has no partnership nor affiliations with the companies listed here.
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