Search Engine Secrets Part 2

Have you seen the ads "submit your site to 300 search engines only 29.95(US)"? Are they of any value? Are auto submit programs useful? The short answer; no. If an Internet surfer is going to look for something he/she will only use the top ten search engines: AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, Northern Light, WebClawer and Yahoo. Many of the auto submission software programs are treated as spam by these engines and the 290 other sites are very likely free links sites, obscure engines no one uses, or a jaded excuse to obtain your e-mail address for spam mailings.

Some sites, such as GoTo.com, charges you so much per keyword, the more you pay per Keyword, the higher rating they give it in their search engine. When a user types in a word into the GoTo search engine it identifies the user as being interested in that category in which your word appears. For each click on "your keyword" you pay so much to the search engine. (i.e.. a price such as .09 cents per click through to your site is not unusual). Other search engines will review your site, for a fee, then place it towards the top of the elected category. Yahoo, for $199.00(US) will provide you with their "Business Express" service, review your site, and post it within seven working days. Ordinarily, if one does not pay Yahoo, one can submit one's site at no cost but you may wait weeks to get it posted; in some cases the submission has to be made two or three times before it is posted.

For those of you who have little excess cash to pay for preferential treatment in the major search engines sites, the best advice, from veteran Internet marketers is to submit your site manually, and individually to each major search engine, that way you will have a good chance of being listed in the engine and under the proper category. Search engine optimization and success is not related to the a higher number of different search engines (300-400) nor to some magic key words or secrets. It relies on web design, an effective marketing of the web site itself (off-line in the business world) and effective use of keywords as described in the column two weeks ago.

A major factor that is beginning to increase the probability of your web site being listed at the beginning of the list is the total number of links to it. It seems the more links (read popular) your page has to other sites the better it positions itself on the search engine list. If a site is listed in similar directories or link pages the more likely it is to receive a higher rating on the search engine. If you wish your site to be listed in the "top ten" make sure it has unique value that would be of interest to "specially invited" visitors. Set up a guest book; ask your visitors how they found the site, and what they expected to see, offer them value and they will return and so will their friends.