by Trenton Moss
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
That's right - this search engine optimisation article is telling you not to
submit your website to any search engines. Not Google, not Inktomi, not
AltaVista. Sound a bit strange? Read on...
Submitting to all the search engines
Submitting your website to every search engine is an incredibly
time-consuming process. There are hundreds and hundreds of them out there -
no doubt, you've come across the companies who'll submit your website to
1000 search engines for you.
Search engine professionals know that the vast majority of these search
engines have a very low usage rate and will drive hardly any traffic your
way. In fact, it's only a handful of search engines that drive the majority
of traffic from search engines to websites.
The major search engines
Some of the most important search engines, probably accounting for over 90%
of the search engine market, are:
[list]
[*]Google
[*]Yahoo!
[*]Inktomi
[*]Teoma
[*]Fast
[*]AltaVista
[/list]
Please note that the new MSN search engine is soon to roll out and will be
very important.
Don't submit to these search engines
"But there's only six of them - why on earth not!?" Well, aside from saving
time and a bit of money (some require a submission fee), quite simply
there's no need. Allow me to explain...
Search engines crawl the web every few weeks (or months) looking for
websites to index. Here's how it works:
[list]
[*]Search engines start at one website with a large number of outbound links
(usually a directory)
[*]They follow every link they come across, indexing each page they arrive
at
[*]Once a page has been indexed they follow all the links from that page
[*]And so on until there are no more links to follow
[/list]
Unless today is your very first day on the Internet, you might have heard
that inbound links into a website are extremely important in establishing
its search engine ranking. If a search engine can't find you by itself
through crawling the web, then your website doesn't have any inbound links.
If so, you'll never achieve a decent search engine ranking so what's the
point in registering?
Getting incoming links quickly
So, how do you get incoming links? Well, this is a vast topic which I won't
be discussing now, but if you want to get a few good links quickly then
there is a solution: web directories. If your website is listed in the
Yahoo! directory (not the same as Yahoo! search) and the Open Directory
(which Google uses) all the search engines should find you within two to
three months.
There are plenty of other directories you should get listed in too. Global,
local and industry-specific directories abound on the Internet. To find them
run a search for 'web directory' on your favourite search engine. The
directories that come up highest in the search rankings will probably
generate the most traffic. You can also check these directories of
directories:
[list]
[*]http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/
[*]http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
[*]http://www.seo-lab.com/directory-articles/best-free-directories.php
[*]http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/
[*]http://www.directory-pages.com/
[/list]
Another even quicker solution is webmaster forums. Search engines love
forums because they include so much fresh content. Most have an area where
you're allowed to enter your URL to get feedback from other webmasters. Find
some forums, sign up, and get posting!
To find out more about building up links to your website please read the
article, Build up links to your website.
A quick fix
It can take a couple of months to get listed in some web directories. If you
can't wait that long then it might be worth submitting your site into a paid
program and "artificially" boosting your rankings. Again, this is a whole
new topic so please feel free to read more about the paid submission
options.
Long term strategy
Search engine optimisation is a long term strategy. You'll be successful if
you:
[list]
[*]Structure your pages correctly by positioning your keywords in effective
places
[*]Build a great site with unique content that other websites will want to
link to
[/list]
Register with as many web directories as possible and then concentrate your
efforts on these two things. Within a few months you'll start to see
success.