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Site submission to search engines and directories is often done incorrectly.
In order to get the best results from search engine and directory submissions,
Grantastic Designs offers the following web site submission tips: Most people incorrectly believe that search engines and directories
are the same. A search engine uses a program that searches documents
(i.e. web pages, which are mostly HTML documents) for specified keywords
and returns the list of documents. A search engine has two parts, a
spider and an indexer. The spider is the program that fetches the documents,
and the indexer reads the documents and creates a catalog or database
based on the words or ideas contained in each document. A directory (such as Yahoo, commonly
mistaken for a search engine) depends on people for listings. The main
difference between a search engine and a directory is that a directory
does not make use of a spider or robot. In other words, a directory
will not list your web page if you do not register it with them. Directories
are usually divided into categories and you must submit your URL under
the most appropriate categories. Search engines vary which HTML tags to emphasize: titles, meta-tags,
alternative text, body text, headings, etc.
Directories primarily emphasize titles, the description you submit to
them, and the category or categories you select in the directories.
Because search engines and directories are so different, it is best
to develop your submission strategies separately. To get optimal listings in search engine and directory queries, keywords
and key concepts must be placed strategically throughout your web pages.
To summarize, you need these words in phrases in: Other factors that affect search engine rankings are HTML layout, keyword
frequency, and keyword placement. These topics are covered in detail
at Copywriting for web sites, Search Engines,
and Directories and Web Design, Search Engine,
and Marketing Considerations. In general, we like to submit 5-7 web pages at a time to the major
search engines to avoid a spam penalty. Additionally, we do not recommend
that you submit the same web pages to the search engines within a short
time period (even if you made changes on them). We recommend that you first get your main URL (yourcompanyname.com)
accepted into a directory before you try to get more targeted pages
listed. You will stand a better chance of getting multiple pages listed
in a directory if your overall site has been accepted first. The time between site submission and addition to the search engine
or directory database is called the lead
time. You will not see results in your traffic logs until the lead
time has passed. We are firm believers in using quality site statistics software. In
fact, we do not believe that anyone can have a successful online business
without it. Our two favorites are WebTrends
and MediaHouse. You will be able to see the results of your search engine optimization
and link development strategies in your site statistics. You can measure
the keywords used, the URLs giving you the most referrals, the type
of browsers used to view your site, the time of day your site is accessed,
and so forth. All of this data will give you a clearer profile of your
site's visitors. Then, based on this data, you can tweak the HTML, graphics, and content
to best suit your customers. An online business that uses search engine optimization as a marketing
strategy will use this submission, monitoring, and tweaking practice.
Site submission is a neverending, ongoing process because search engines
constantly change their relevancy algorithms. We recommend that you resubmit a web page to a search engine only
when there is a significant change to web page or if a page has dropped
from the index. (Changing a meta-tag description does not
constitute a significant change.) To see if your web pages have been added or deleted from a search engine,
go to each of the search engines listed below and type in the string
listed below the search engine name. Replace "companyname.com"
with your URL (web site address). AltaVista Google HotBot (which uses Inktomi) Fast Search If your web site has been accepted into a directory, you can then
submit specialized pages within your web site to other directory categories.
Once your site has been added to a directory, you should not have to
resubmit it unless your business has significantly changed and you belong
in a different category.
Shari Thurow is the Marketing Director and Webmaster for Grantastic Designs, Inc. Shari has been designing and promoting web sites since 1995, and she is outsourced to many firms throughout the U.S. She has a 100% success rate for getting client sites ranked at the top of search engine and directory queries.
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