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Search Engines and Web Directories -Where to Submit

It is claimed that there are thousands of search engines and web directories across the web but it is the top 10 that drive the majority of web traffic!

Web Directories

A web directory is a web search tool compiled manually by human editors. Directories are lists of websites categorised by areas, such as sport or business. Every website in a directory is reviewed by a human editor who places it into the correct category according to content and the location of the company.

To submit to a web directory, you normally need to submit information such as the company name and company description. This information will then be assessed by an editor and, if deemed suitable for addition, will be listed under one or more subject categories.
Users can search across a directory using keywords or phrases, or browse through the subject hierarchy.

Examples of directories:

Yahoo,
Open Directory Project,
Joeant,
Accessible Ireland,
About.com,

Search Engines

A search engine is a web search tool that automatically visits websites (using crawlers), records and indexes them within its database, and generates results based on a user's search criteria.

Search engines such as Google, MSN, etc are driven by robots. These robots move through the Internet, indexing web pages that they find or that have been submitted to them. The information that they collate is then ranked according to each search engines algorithm (each search engine is different).

The most popular search engines include:
All the web,
Altavista,
AOL,
Ask Jeeves,
Google,
Mirago,
MSN,

Submitting to search engines

Many people believe that by just submitting a website to a search engine, that is enough to get a top listing. Unfortunately this is not true. A site should only ever be submitted to a search engine when it has been optimised. As search engines have a large number of rules and requirements, it is important to make sure that each page you submit follows their criteria.

How often should I submit?

One of the most abused areas of the internet is submission to search engines and directories. With software and emails promising to submit your website to 30,000 plus search engines and directories, many companies may think that it is a good idea to keep submitting pages to the search engines until their pages are listed- WRONG!

Search engines have very stringent standards when it comes to submitting webpages and you should plan to submit your site at the very most, only once a month. If you want to increase your chance of getting yourwebsite listed on the major search engines, make sure your website can also be easily found by search engines- for example make sure your website is listed in the major web directories, as search engines are continuously indexing them.

Paid Inclusions

A number of years ago, one of the fastest ways to get a web page indexed within a search engine was through the paid inclusions services that many search engines provided.

Today there is only one major search engine providing paid inclusion - Yahoo, through the Yahoo Seach Marketing Paid inclusion will ensure that a web page is indexed within 48 hours of submission and is continuously indexed to ensure that fresh content is displayed in the search engines results.

However, paid placement does not guarantee where the page will be placed and as such, using a paid placement is only effective if the web page is optimised.

Pay Per Click Search Engines

Pay Per Click Search Engines will rank a website in accordance to how much a company is preparing to pay for placement. The best known Pay Per Click Search Engines areOverture(now owned by Yahoo) andGoogle Adwords

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