Manual Submissions
These are pretty much still advisable when you’re launching your website. The search engines won’t know you exist unless you have links coming into your site from somewhere else on the web. You can let the search engines know you are online with a few well chosen submissions to quality directories, social media websites and search engines.
If you choose relevant, reputable online directories to submit to, you may also benefit from a little traffic. Combine this with creating origninal content regularly and gathering some backlinks, and you should soon be receiving visits from the Google spider.
Nearly everyone I know has had an email offering to submit your url to a million search engines and directories for 99 dollars or similar. Although they probably do as they state they will, these kinds of offers in most cases are just not worth it. You might as well download a piece of free software (Web CEO for example has a completely free version that will submit your site to about 100 search engines, and there are others out there.)
A note about manual submissions. There are 2 directories out there that really matter. DMOZ, and Yahoo. DMOZ is free, but sometimes difficult to obtain a listing with. Yahoo charge a few hundred bucks with no guarantee of being listed.
Now, DMOZ is one of those that is debated, slated, and simultaneously highly rated all across the web. Accusations of manipulation by Editors with vested interests are rife. Yet, it is still very important – Google respects it enough to use DMOZ listings as the basis for it’s own Google Directory. Enough said there. Submit your website, and go away for a while. Forget about it for a long, long time. I had a reply from an Editor who was good enough to reply to me recently, telling me that for some categories there was a backlog of up to 2 years. I know, I know…
Submit to Yahoo also, if you wish to. A few hundred bucks (unless you’re a non-profit site from what I remember) and no guarantees. But if you’re building a reputable, genuine website that is useful to your visitors, then you’re in the right area to submit to Yahoo Directory without too much fear.
Quick Tips:
- Search for:(your business niche) directory
- Check the quality of the directory. If it’s been spam-bombed, forget it.
- Submit your website details to a handful of quality, relevant directories.
- Submit to the ODP (another name for DMOZ). Forget you’ve done it, and do not re-submit. If you re-submit your site you may actually go further down the queue. If you really have waited a while, contact the Editor for your category politely.
- If you wish to pay the fee, go ahead and submit to Yahoo Directory. You probably won’t have as much of a wait as with DMOZ.
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