Written by Fernando Maciá
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To position your website in the Internet search engines, the first condition is that the search engines know the URL address of your website. To do so, you will have to register your website in the search engines. Here is the first step in search engine optimization.
In the prehistory of search engine optimization marketing – and this was not so long ago – we all thought that the secret to getting visitors to our sites required submitting our pages to thousands of search engines around the world. And that the way to achieve good rankings in the results had to do with the frequency with which these pages were submitted to the search engines. It was the time of “Submit your website to over 50,000 search engines!!!” . We thought that the continuous submission of pages to as many search engines as possible, along with some “magic” in keywords and metatags would conjure up the miracle of boosting our web traffic.
Today we know that, neither then nor nowadays, it is necessary to be submitting our pages to the search engines in which we want to stand out continuously. Although there are still many people on the Web who are convinced that the submission process plays a key role in search engine rankings, experience shows that the submission process is simply a means of getting our most optimized pages to the search engines.
That is to say, the fact of submitting that page is not what makes it rank well in the search engine, but the optimization process it has undergone.
However, once optimized, it is necessary to inform the search engine of the existence of such a page, so that it can be added to its index as soon as possible. So on-page optimization is what achieves a good ranking, but without submitting the page to the search engine, the search engine doesn’t know to index it. So they are two distinct and necessary processes.
So, let’s start by optimizing the pages and, once we have achieved this goal, we will consider the mailing process. By the way, on which search engines do you want to achieve good results? In 50,000, 15,000, 1,500 search engines worldwide? Or on the four or five that are going to send 99% of the traffic to your website? Simpler is always better. So let’s first look at the four major search engines.
How to rank in Google
Google is almost everyone’s favorite search engine. To get our pages listed among their results, the first step is to fill out the submission questionnaire on their website.
The instructions provided by Google are quite simple: submit only the home page and Google can crawl the rest of the website. However, submitting your site in this way in no way guarantees that your site will be listed. Google has always preferred to find new websites by crawling other existing pages in its index and following links from there. If you want to increase your chances of seeing your website indexed, look for some quality websites and place links to your website on them, if possible. You don’t need many, but three to five quality links at this stage will “encourage” Google to include your website in its index.
Google normally updates its index once a month, so don’t panic if four weeks go by and there is still no sign of your pages in the index.
However, if after 6 weeks your site is still not indexed, concentrate on adding more links and working on getting listed in Open Directory.
How to position your website on Yahoo!
Until 18 months ago, the best way to get listed on Yahoo! was to pay the $299 annual fee to be included in their index. However, at this point,Yahoo! gets its results from Google’s index and appearing in their directory is no longer vital (although many people prefer to appear in the directory as well).
So at this point, it seems advisable to concentrate on getting Google to include your website in their index, and this should be enough to get you listed on Yahoo!, (although with the recent acquisition of Inktomi by Yahoo! this could change in the short term).
How to position your website on MSN
There are two effective ways to include your website in MSN results (apart, of course, from sponsored links). You can submit your website to Looksmart if you want to find your website listed in the Website Directory or you can opt for Inktomi to be listed in the “Websites” section.
Looksmart results are displayed above Inktomi results, so if you opt for only one of the two options, make sure it is Looksmart.
However, Inktomi is a crawler and is very useful if your website includes a large amount of content or hundreds of different products. If someone does a search consisting of several words or a certain model number, it will be Inktomi that will have the result, not Looksmart.
AOL
AOL has not enabled any way for you to submit your pages. AOL uses Google results, so getting a good Google ranking is critical if you want to be included in AOL results.
Directories
How to position yourself in Open Directory
The “Open Directory”, also called DMOZ, is a comprehensive directory updated and maintained by thousands of volunteer editors. To add your website to this directory, find the most appropriate category for your website and click on the “add URL” link. From there, it is a matter of following the instructions carefully. Each category may have specific instructions, sometimes even individual publishers offer their own guidelines.
Do not try to write a description full of dozens of keywords. Choose 3 or 4 of your most important key concepts and write a brief 20-30 word description that includes these terms.
DMOZ editors often change the descriptions submitted by the owners of the submitted sites so take your time to write a good description, that way you will reduce the chances that the editor will change it for you. Remember, DMOZ editors are volunteers and do not get paid for their work, so don’t expect to see your site included in just a few days. Sometimes it can take weeks, even months.
Looksmart
Until recently, Looksmart required a $299 fee to ensure that a website would be reviewed by its editors and included in its index. Now, this directory employs its own combination of paid inclusion and editorial review. You pay $29 to ensure that publishers visit your site and add it to the directory. Starting with the inclusion of your pages, you will have to pay $0.15 per click for the first 5,000 visitors Looksmart sends to your website. From that figure, the click-through cost is adjusted depending on your type of business (it can vary from $0.23 to $0.75 per click). The good thing about this system is that you can set your monthly budget to avoid overspending (the minimum monthly cost is $15).
The crawlers
There are many other search engines that you should include among your preferences. Let’s review the most important ones:
Inktomi
Inktomi does not have its own search interface but delivers its crawler results to many other search engines. The best way to include your website in Inktomi is to use one of the paid inclusion services. The usual cost is 35€ per year for the first URL sent and 25€ for each additional URL. The subscription is for one year and ensures to have the website listed within 48 hours. Two of Inktomi’s paid inclusion service providers are PositionTech and Network Solutions.
Inktomi provides results to Looksmart, MSN, HotBot and Overture.
Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves is a growing search engine with many loyal users. Tracker results for Ask Jeeves are obtained from the Teoma index. Unless Teoma has crawled your website from another site that is already in their index, the best way to be included is to use their paid inclusion service. The fees are in line with those of Inktomi and are $30 per year for the first URL and $18 for each additional URL. The paid inclusion partners are Position Tech and Ineedhits.com.
Fast
Fast is similar to Inktomi in that it does not have its own user interface. However, sites indexed by Fast show up on both AllTheWeb and Lycos and Terra, so submitting your site to Fast is definitely worthwhile. The fees are 35€ per year for the first URL and 16€ per year for each additional URL. The partners of this paid inclusion service are Position Tech and Lycos InSite Select.
Fast provides results to Lycos and AllTheWeb
AltaVista
AltaVista is no longer as important in the international search engine landscape as it once was and after the recent acquisition by Overture (itself acquired by Yahoo!) its future is uncertain. If you want to submit your website to AltaVista you can use their basic submission service, which is free, but very slow, or you can use their paid opt-in service which will cost you 34.74€ for the first URL (for 6 months only).
Netscape and iWon
Both Netscape and iWon get their results from Google.
Conclusion
Although some search engines offer free page submission services and others may include your site if there are links pointing to it from other websites already listed, the guidelines outlined above summarize the most effective and fastest way to get your site included in the major search engines.
In addition to those considered here, there may be other regional search engines -depending on the geographic scope of your target market- or sectorial search engines -depending on your type of business- in which you should consider including your web pages. This should be more than enough to drive a lot of qualified traffic from the most popular search engines to your website.
