How to Submit your Site to Search Engines and Directories

Submitting your site to search engines and directories requires search engine indexing. Indexing is how information is collected, parsed, and stored in search engine databases. This facilitates fast and accurate information retrieval. The search engine index design uses theories from linguistics, cognitive psychology, mathematics, informatics, physics, and computer science.

Search Engine Optimization is about creating a site that meets search engine criteria. Once your site is up to speed, you can submit your site to search engines and directories, and here's how.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Do not automatically submit your sites to search engines and directories. It's much better to manually submit your sites because this gives you control over where you will be listed. Automatic submission software is banned by many search engines and directories because it can't always place links in relevant categories. Search engines don't like automatic submissions. They get millions of auto submissions daily and as a result, go to great lengths to stop them, such as requiring passwords before the submission is accepted.
   
   Manual submission is the best way to choose descriptions and keywords that will be most effective in promoting your site.

2. 

   There are some free search engines and directories you can manually submit your site to, but for all intents and purposes it's better to pay a few bucks to get a legitimate placing. Millions of people are submitting their websites, blogs, and articles to the free sites, consequently, you will not get a good placement, and in most cases your site is not indexed at all. The adage, "you get what you pay for is applicable in this case. You will definitely get a major return on your small investment as your site becomes more and more popular.
   
   Here is a list of search engines and directories to manually submit your site to:
   
   http://dmoz.org
   http://dir.yahoo.com
   http://www.joeant.com
   http://skaffe.com
   http://www.bluefind.com
   http://www.zeal.com
   http://www.goguides.org
   http://www.gimpsy.com
   http://www.wowdirectory.com
   http://www.sevenseek.com
   http://www.thisisouryear.com
   
   Some of the more popular search engines are (also shown is the approximate amount of time it takes before your site is listed):
   
   MSN: up to two months
   Google: up to four weeks
   Alta Vista: up to one week
   Fast: up to two weeks
   Excite: up to six weeks
   AOL: up to two months
   HotBot: up to two months
   iWon: up to two months

3. Once you have submitted your site to the various search engines and directories do not resubmit. Doing so could result in your site being banned for spamming. One submission is all it takes to get your website visible in cyberspace.

[quicksilverthor]

on 11/22/2009 Thanks, this is something I don't know much about. 5* and recommend.

[SarahElizabeth]

on 11/16/2009 I've added this one to my favorites too! You are definitely well-informed on how to market web sites. Thanks so much for this fantastic info! 5*