Some Facts about Website Submission

 Website Submission on Directories and Search Engines 

Over 90% of US search engine traffic is driven by Yahoo! or Google owned search technology - source: Search Engine Watch. Additionally Ask Jeeves owns around 5% of the traffic. You may hear the names of many other search engines, but most of them are powered by the above search engines in one way or another. For example, Yahoo! owns Inktomi,AltaVista, and AllTheWeb. 

 What are Meta Search Engines? 

Meta search engines do not crawl the web, but combine the results of other search engines. If you are listed in the top few engines then you will also appear in meta search results. Vivisimo is an example of a meta search engine.

 Search Engine Submission Software 

There is no reason to purchase search engine submission software. Any search engine worth being listed in will usually list your site if you get just a few incoming links. Also people who claim to resubmit your site monthly are trying to take advantage of you. Search engines will keep your site in their index if you have a few decent inbound links. Most people do not even submit sites to search engines anymore, but here are links to the only five search engine submission pages we potentially use.

 Free Search Engine Submission 

Most people rarely submit pages to search engines since they know these engines will follow links and index the pages (that is what search engines do). Anyone who tries to sell you submission software is ripping you off. If you want to submit your site (please note submission does not guarantee inclusion) then these are the locations where you can. 

• Submit to Google (free) - powers around half of US based web search.

• Submit to Yahoo! (free) - powers over 40% of US based web search. Requires a free Yahoo! id. Yahoo! also has a paid inclusion program by the name of Overture Site Match.

• Submit to Ask Jeeves / Teoma ($30) - powers around 5% of web search. Ask Jeeves / Teoma is the only major search engine which does not have a free site submit option. Eventually (usually around 1.5 months) they will list your site in their search results if you have a few inbound links.

• Submit to Gigablast (free) - powers a much small percentage of search than the other engines, but it is quick to index pages when the site submit is working.

 Directory Submission 

Directories are human compiled search engines. They generally each have their own specific focus and taxonomy. By listing your site in a few directories you can ensure that search engines will eventually pick up your pages. Since directories are compiled by humans they take an extremely large amount of time to maintain. Directories do not aim to list all websites, but only the best. 

 Major Directories 

There are two directories which are generally stand above all others in distribution and importance.

• Open Directory Project - 100% free directory of websites created by volunteer editors. The Open Directory Project is the largest directory on the web, and many other sites mirror portions of the data on their sites. Open Directory Project submission guidelines

• Yahoo! Directory - large directory owned by Yahoo!. Commercial listings are $299 / yr (via Yahoo! Express), whereas noncommercial sites can be submitted free. Yahoo! Directory submission guidelines. You do not need to list in the Yahoo! Directory to list in Yahoo! Search search results.

 Second Tier Directories 

There are a ton of smaller directories on the web. Many of them require a reciprocal link to be included. If a general directory requires a reciprocal link to be listed in then it is usually not worth listing in. The cost for submission into most second tier directories is usually less than $50.

Some of the more popular second tier directories are:

• JoeAnt

• Zeal (the non commercial arm of LookSmart)

• Web Atlas

• Uncover the Net

• GoGuides

• Skaffe

• Web Beacon

• BlueFind

• Wow Directory

• Gimpsy

 Topic Specific Directories 

You can search for directories specific to your site by searching some of the top search engines for various descriptive keywords in your topic (for me some examples might be seo, marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization...) and adding phrases to them such as add url, submit site, resources, websites. 

Good Luck and come back to www.howgoogleranks.com anytime, anywhere you need to learn some SEO stuffs. Please feel free to share your thoughts below!