Search Engines Submission

Once you have a ready website (see intro) for submission, you should do it as early as you can. This is because most search engines have a backlog of websites to index. Search Engine submission is instantaneous, but inclusion is not. Often, a webmaster have to wait for a period of time before his/her website is included.

The most important search engines to submit at this time are those that most people use. They are:

Search Engines

Google (most popular and search results or Google are used by many other search engines)
Altavista (Used to be most popular before Google, but still very widely used.
Lycos
Hotbot
Alltheweb
Wisenut (owned by Looksmart)
Teoma (owned by Ask Jeeves)

Multi Submission Engines

You have probably come across websites that offer to submit your website to many different search engines for free (or for a fee). While they may look like a great timesaver, you should however, be very careful in deciding whether to use them.

Some websites use offer this service just for collecting your email address. If you submit through them, you will possibly get increased spam in your email.

Also, you do not know whether the submitting script is reliable or the what goes on behind the scenes. You do not whether your website has been actually submitted, if not, when it will be submitted, or if ever it will be. Search engines penalise people who submit their websites all the time because they already have many new websites to index and search engine spamming will waste their resources and likely to get you banned. If you do not submit your website yourself, what if your website was not submitted to the search engine you want? Would you know? If your website is not submitted, then you will be waiting for indexing for a long long time. If you decided that you have waited enough and wants to submit your site manually but it was actually submitted the first time by the multi submitter, you will cause your url to again drop down to the end of the indexing queue. ie another long wait for your turn. In the worst case, the search engine may penalise you for your impatience. In short, do it manually yourself and be in control.

After Submitting your website

After you have submitted your website and your website has reached the front of the indexing list, search engine spiders will be sent to index ("spider") your website. They are not human but software following instructions to "move" throughout your website's HTML code and links. All spiders are programmed differently and they "see" your website differently according to their own set of rules. Some spiders put more importance to your title, some your description, your meta keywords, your text content, links etc etc. Also, as search engines 'age', they also make changes to their spiders to improve effeciency. Sometimes, there are guidelines for webmasters to read, put up by particular search engine. However, one rule is always consistent. Good content. If you have good content, and are not trying to trick the spiders, you will be fine.

A search spider will first crawl the page you submitted followed by the links from that page. Therefore, it is important that you link your pages well. A page that is not linked will not be visited and will not be indexed. Therefore, if you write in your content something like "You can read all about spiders in searchengines.php in this directory", the spiders will not be able to actually go over because they do not read. They only follow coded, clickable links. The same goes for text in a graphic image. Text that are put in images cannot be read nor indexed by searh spiders.

After you have submitted your website for indexing, practice patience, and check your visitor statistical logs. If you see a "googlebot" or some kind of bot, it is a search spider! Once you get indexed, you will also be able to see from your statistics which search engines are your visitors coming from and what keywords they were searching for. You can also search the search engines and see where is your position on the results list and optimise your website slowly. I say slowly because often, you need to wait for a period of time before the spiders come back to notice the difference. If you just make the changes and upload, you will not see an immediate effect of your changes on the search results position.

Directories

Directories are much like your local telephone book. They are compiled by humans and do not use spiders. Most good directories will let you submit non-commercial websites for free, charging only for express services. One very good directory to submit to is DMOZ Open directory.

Open Directory

Also, Yahoo and Looksmart have directories very worth to be listed in.

Yahoo Directory
Looksmart Directory

Due to the above directories being human listed, it will take a little time for them to review your website since everything is manually done. In the connection, you should also note that any tricks you play will be detected. If you describe your website as a "free email" service but is actually a software retailing website, you will be caught. In the best outcome, your description will be modified by the directory editor, and in the worse outcome your site could get blacklisted.

The rule of the thumb is, when submitting your website to any directory, enter descriptions that is short, clear, relevant and with no marketing gimmicks. (such as "The coolest website!" or "check it out!" ) Try to include the keywords that you are targeting and word your sentence with care. Once you have been listed, it may not be easy to make changes.