~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Patricia Rees
You guys have a great newsletter. I was just finishing my first
e-business site back in November when I started subscribing to your
newsletter. SEO was never a priority for my previous clients so I
hadn't really learned what it was about. With just the little bit of
info that I got from 5 or 6 of your newsletters, I was able to put
enough into his site to get him a #3 ranking on Google for his desired
key phrase.
Here is the problem:
The site is only #18 on HotBot and nowhere on AltaVista. It has never
been submitted to Yahoo , Go or LookSmart. I'm afraid to mess with it
now and risk dropping the rankings in the ever so excellent Google and
Excite lists. With the cross over of indexes and merging/partnering of
these companies databases, I'm really confused about who to submit to.
Can I submit to AltaVista and HotBot without worrying that it will
affect Google and Excite? Should I submit to Inktomi, and which
engines will that cover? If I submit to Inktomi should I submit to
their partners as well, or is that a waste of time and possibly money?
Is GoTo really now the same as NBCi and fed solely by Inktomi? What
about AOL and Netscape? Do people really use the directories'
categories? I tried to use the categories at Netscape, Yahoo and
Looksmart to figure how to submit his site and couldn't really find a
good category for "guitar straps" that are not sold in a regional
retail store. Most of the categories led me to shopping which dead
ends in a list of 4 or 5 geographic regions. Why would I want to look
for something to buy in a region if I wanted to buy online?
This may be more appropriate for Search Engine Watch forums, but your
insight on the current tangle of search engines would be helpful. What
are the top 10 or 12 search engines/databases to submit to? Where can
I go to find the most up to date information on which engine's lists
feeds which others and how this might affect submission efforts.
Pat Rees
re: http:www.eldoradostraps.com
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hey Patricia,
We're glad you enjoy the newsletter and that it has been instrumental
in getting your site some high rankings. Now that Rank Write is over
a year old, we've been hearing from more and more readers who've had
similar success stories to share. These are the kinds of things that
make all the work we put into the newsletter and Web site, so
worthwhile! Please keep those stories coming!
Okay, back to work...you've got a lot of questions to address, so let
me take them one at a time.
>>The site is only #18 on HotBot and nowhere on AltaVista. It has
never
been submitted to Yahoo , Go or LookSmart. I'm afraid to mess with it
now
and risk dropping the rankings in the ever so excellent Google and
Excite
lists.<<
First of all, *only* being number 18 on HotBot, is not necessarily a
bad thing. Although getting to the top ten is definitely what we
strive for, being in the top 20 is still good. It's really difficult
to try to control the actual placement and ranking of any site and you
shouldn't really worry about day-to-day fluctuations on any given
engine. Some days you might be number eight on HotBot, and the next
day you may be number 18. Don't sweat these kinds of things. It is
true, however, that if you carefully follow all of the advice we give
out each week (especially where the copy is concerned) you'll have a
much better chance at keeping long-term top ten rankings. But even
for experts like us, there can be ranking swings in any given month.
Being nowhere in AltaVista can mean different things. You didn't say
if your site is actually in AV's database, but is not ranking high, or
if it's not in the database at all. To see if you're in AV's
database, go to its search box and type in: url:www.yoursite.com
(substituting your actual site domain for yoursite.com) and see if
your URL shows up. If it does, then you're in the database. If your
site doesn't show up in the listings, then you're probably not in the
database. The reasons for not being listed are varied. It's possible
that you (or someone else working on the site) once used automatically
generated doorway/gateway pages and submitted these to AV and they
have now banned your site. They did a sweep a long time ago where
they deleted and banned these sites. If you suspect this is your
problem, you can email AV and explain to them that you previously lost
your mind and/or didn't know what you were doing when you submitted
doorway pages to them, and you swear on your mother's life that you
will never do it again. This can sometimes get them to un-ban you.
If that doesn't work, promise them your first-born child...that often
does the trick!
But seriously, you do have to beg and grovel and be nice and
apologetic to them. If you are sure that there were never any
doorway/gateway pages to your site, and you used to be in AV but are
no longer there, you are not alone. It appears that they've recently
done more sweeps of their index and have deleted some sites for
unknown reasons. I won't go as far as saying that they deleted sites
so they can get you to pay for their new "pay-for-inclusion" program,
but it does appear that they've deleted a lot of "highly optimized"
and "highly ranked" sites from their database over the past few
months. You can draw your own conclusions. You can keep submitting
to them through their free URL form, or if you really want to be
listed in AV, then try out their new pay program. However, as I
mentioned in my recent rant about AV's paid program, the amount of
traffic generated with a high ranking from them is extremely minimal.
My own personal opinion right now is not to worry about whether or not
your site is listed in AltaVista. That could change at any time, but
that's where I'm at right now.
You say you've never submitted to Yahoo! or LookSmart. Well, by all
means, definitely submit to them! Getting a good ranking with either
or both of those directories can only help you in the spidering
engines and should definitely not hurt any existing rankings. Before
you submit to either of them, however, please, please, please first
read my article on Directory Submissions or have a qualified SE
consultant who specializes in directory submissions do it for you.
Once you are listed in the directories, it's extremely difficult to
change your listing, and it's also very difficult to submit properly
to them if you've never done it before. Yes, I am trying to scare you
with this, because I truly believe this is one of the most critical
things you can do in your entire search engine ranking campaign. A
good/bad directory listing can make or break your site, so make sure
you know what you're doing!
>>Can I submit to AltaVista and HotBot without worrying that it will
affect Google and Excite? <<
Most definitely. None of those search engines have anything to do
with each other. However, if your site hasn't changed significantly
and you're already listed in HotBot, I wouldn't recommend any
resubmissions to them.
>>Should I submit to Inktomi, and which engines will that cover? <<
If you're in HotBot, you're already in the Inktomi database, as that's
what they use for their results. No need to resubmit to Inktomi.
>>Is GoTo really now the same as NBCi and fed solely by Inktomi?<<
I think you have this backwards. NBCi is now using GoTo results, not
the other way around. GoTo also uses Inktomi results under their
pay-per-click listings. They've always done this.
>>What about AOL and Netscape?<<
They both use the Open Directory (aka dmoz/odp) for their main
results, so be sure you follow the guidelines and carefully submit to
them at . Plus, AOL uses the Inktomi database and
Netscape uses Google's database for secondary results.
>I tried to use the categories at Netscape, Yahoo and Looksmart to
figure how to submit his site and couldn't really find a good category
for "guitar straps" that are not sold in a regional retail store.<<
Instead of drilling down through categories to find the best one for
your site, when you're dealing with directories, I've found that the
best way to do this is by running a search using your keyphrases and
then looking at the categories that come up in your search results. I
did this just now in Yahoo! for your phrase "guitar straps" and it did
show me a category that is not regional in nature, but one having to
do with musical instrument parts and accessories. I would assume that
DMOZ and LookSmart have similar categories.
>>What are the top 10 or 12 search engines/databases to submit to?<<
If you're starting out with a freshly optimized site that has never
been submitted to any search engine or directory, here's some
important information about them:
Directories:
Yahoo! Directory (Web Sites): paid inclusion $199 Yahoo! Web Pages:
Submit through Google (This is what comes up after the directory
results or if there is no site in their directory.)
LookSmart: paid inclusion $199 gets you listed in the LookSmart
Directory and its partner sites' directories; most notably MSN's
directory and Excite's directory. Oh my...here's some breaking news
for you. I just looked at LookSmart's Express Service page to check
my facts, and it appears that their $199 fee is going up on August 1,
2001 to $299! Holy cow...you've got to be kidding me. Well, I don't
care how far they claim their reach is, I would like to publicly state
that I find that price totally offensive and I hope enough fuss is
made over this that they change their minds. Ouch. 'Nuff said...
Open Directory (DMOZ): Gets you listed in their own directory, plus
certain results at AOL, Netscape, Google, Lycos and zillions of other
lesser directories, portals and search engines.
Getting into the above directories gives you some pretty good reach.
However, you'll also want to get your well-written, optimized site
into the following spidering search engine's databases:
Google, Lycos, AltaVista, Hotbot (Inktomi's database), Fast
(AllTheWeb), Excite, and NorthernLight.
You don't have to do anything at MSN directly, since they get all
their results from either LookSmart or Inktomi.
Plus, if you want to be in the "sponsored" section or "featured sites"
section or whatever they're calling them these days at many search
engines, you may want to bid on keywords at GoTo. I truly hope that
the recent lawsuit against many of the engines for not labeling these
paid listings as advertisements spurs them on to fix that, but that's
fodder for another issue! Oh, and one more thing, you can get into
Excite's sponsored sites area, by paying for placement at "FindWhat."
Whew! Are you more confused than ever? I do believe I've covered the
major places in which to submit, however, if I've made any errors or
omissions, feel free to let me know. These things change very
frequently. Although I'm pretty sure I'm up-to-date with this, it
wouldn't surprise me if I messed up somewhere along the line!
Jill
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
