Search Engine Submissions

The best thing to do is to submit a URL by hand. The majority of the search engines require you to fill out a short submission form supplying only the URL of the site you want to be added, and your e-mail address. From time to time you must also choose a category for your site.

Make sure you read the submission guidelines for each search engine carefully initially. Choosing the correct category and following the guidelines for filling out the submission form is especially important with human reviewed directories like Yahoo and ODP (Open Directory Project).

Generally speaking you should only add the URL of your main page (index/default) to directories. The search engines will allow you to submit individual pages as long as each Web page has unique content. Just do not overdo it. To be safe you should preferably submit just one page each day. And give the engines time to index (4 - 8 weeks). Do not resubmit the same page over and over again.

Usually submitting all your sub pages (one page each day) is the fastest way of getting your whole site indexed. However, some search engines might rank your Web pages higher if they are not directly submitted, but found by the search engine spider. Try linking to all your sub-pages from the main page, submitting the main page only and waiting 2 - 3 months. Then check that pages are listed, and submit only the pages not yet found by the spider.

Although this might give you a small impulse in some search engines it is slow, and it is no guarantee that your secondary-pages will be found by all the search engines. Submitting one page each day will not be considered as spamming, and will result in more pages getting listed faster.

Re-submission

If your site still is not get listed after several weeks, your site submission might have been lost. Try to resubmit your site, but make sure you first check if there are any potential problems with your site preventing it from being indexed. You may check your site using some on-line tools for identifying potential problems and making your site ready for submission. You should wait at least 6 - 8 weeks after submitting first time to give all the search engines time to index the site. Then check if the site is indexed and how it is ranking. If it is it ranking well, leave it alone. If it isn’t in the index, resubmit.