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Submitting Pages to Search Engines
Submitting pages to search engines is very straight-forward. Since a search engine's spider gathers all the needed information from a web page, the web address of the page being submitted is all that's required. Pages can be submitted to each search engine separately or submitted to many search engines at once by using submittal sites such as Jim Tools. Most third-party tools for submitting pages to search engines are reliable. However, for those who want to cut out the middle man, pages can be submitted to each search engine separately. Links to the forms which allow you to submit pages to a search engine can usually be found somewhere on the search engine's front page. These links are usually named something like "Add URL" or "Add A Site". For your convenience, we have added links to the Add URL Pages for the most popular search engines in the table to the right. Submitting Pages to Directories Submitting pages to directories involves a little more effort than submitting them to search engines. In addition to the page's web address, information such as a short description is submitted to the directory. The description used is important because a directory search looks for matches ONLY in the descriptions submitted. The two top directories at this time are Yahoo! and the Open Directory. Yahoo has been around for a while and is still the king of all search engines and directories. Unfortunately, unlike some directories and all search engines, Yahoo only lists the main page from any one site. More information on submitting to Yahoo can be found at How To Suggest a Site to Yahoo! The Open Directory is structured similar to Yahoo's but it is unique in that it's editors are all volunteers like you and me. This allows them to have a lot more editors and therefore add a lot more pages to their index. More importantly, the Open Directory also feeds results to several other directories and search engines including Netscape Search, HotBot, and Lycos. Similarly, LookSmart feeds results to the search engines AltaVista, Excite, and MSN Search. Pages can be submitted to each directory separately or submitted to many directories at once by using submittal sites such as Jim Tools. Developing Reciprocal Links Web pages can also be found through links from other sites. The more pages which include a link back to yours, the better. Not only do the links themselves generate more traffic, but many search engines use "site popularity" as a factor in determining how high pages are ranked in the search results. The more sites which link to your page, the more "popular" the page is deemed. So how do you get other sites to add a link back to yours ? Ask! Offer to trade links with them by agreeing to add a link to their site if they will add one to yours. Look for sites which have content that compliments the subject matter of your site but doesn't directly compete with it. It may take time to cultivate a number of links but it's definitely worth the effort. Useful Links Here are some links to some sites and tools that we have found useful. If you come across a site that you think should be included here, tell us about it.
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