Search Engines

[j2k4b]

I know this is the best place to find out the answers to ask questions about websites. You guys rock.

 

What is the best and most affective way to submit to Search Engines. Free ways would be great but give me ideas on paid ways too. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Deverill]

If you have time, patience and desire then the best is to make a great site and get people to link to it and let the search engines find it themselves.

 

The alternative is paid-advertisement either on a site that would send people to yours or with something like Google Adwords. For example, if you have a site that sells doggy treats then a HUGE pet shelter or pet health site may be worth contacting to see if you can advertise with them.

 

Search engine submission services are pretty much a waste.

 

Remember, however, that search engines are different than directories - they usually have to be submitted to by hand.

[Striver]

You should be extremely careful about using those free submission tools and even some of the paid submission tools. Most people don't realize they can do far more damage than good because they often just spam the heck out of specialized link sites and such. On one of my earlier sites I had an "add-a-link" page where people could post links to web pages but it was supposed to be confined to a specific topic. The page got into one of those site submission programs and I was flooded with non-relevant links.

 

It was easy for me to cut them off by adding an extra option to the submission form, but I had some extra time one day and set up another program to track who was actually posting the links. I finally e-mailed the webmaster of one of the sites, selling health insurance for children, informing him that his method of advertising his site was putting his link right alongside advertisements for child pornography sites. He stopped using it immediately.

 

Many of the places those systems post your link are known for having tons of spam links. Top search engines such as google do consider that in determining the rating of your site. If they see your site linked from pages known for high spam link content they will assume yours is a bad site and drop your google rating right through the floor. So using those submitting services and programs can do you much more harm than good. The best way to submit to any search engine or link site is one at a time, carefully jumping through all hoops required so you know where your link is ending up.