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Search Engine Submission
Unfortunately, simply submitting your pages is only part of the
job. With millions of pages in dozens of search indexes, the odds
of many people finding you are still not very good without careful
planning. Even after you submit, the page can often be dropped later
for no apparent reason or never be accepted at all. Search engines
are not yet 100% accurate. But considering the sheer volume they
deal with everyday, it's understandable, but unfortunate that there
will be random errors.
The main reason that submitting is not enough, is position. It
takes some follow up, revision, and resubmitting of your pages to
improve your positions on the search engines. If people search for
a keyword or phrase and can't find you, then you might as well not
be in the search engine index at all!
Basic guidelines:
1. BE PRODUCT/SERVICE CENTERED: Make sure you optimize at
least one or more of your pages for EVERY product or service you
offer. This is among the biggest mistakes many site managers make
when designing and indexing their Web site.
For example, let's say you sell software. More specifically, you
sell accounting programs such as QuickenTM, Microsoft MoneyTM, PeachtreeTM
and various accounting add-on modules. If you set up a home page
properly that had keywords such as accounting, software, payroll,
general ledger, checking, etc., you might get some traffic. However,
if you didn't implement the same indexing strategies given here
for each product you sell, you'll miss out on a lot of potential
business. Many people know what product they want to buy or research.
They may search on that product name specifically rather than for
an "Accounting Software" web site.In addition, the more
specific keywords you use, such as product brand names or specific
adjectives they might use, the better chance you have of being listed
favorably.
2. DON'T SPAM: Don't blatantly "spam" search engines.
Specifically, you should not put in keywords that don't pertain
to your site just so you might attract more visitors. You could
put in words such as "sex" or "stock market"
or whatever. However:
a) You'll not be attracting the visitors that you want anyway.
b) You'll only serve to annoy people and label yourself as a "spammer".
c) Many search engines are looking for various kinds of index spamming
and are banning sites entirely that they catch! If your site or
pages disappear, consider this as a possible reason why. Sometimes
"innocent" pages can be dropped as well.
SUBMIT EACH PAGE? Most engines will not only index your
main page but will also seek out links to your other pages to index.
They'll move two or more levels down the site tree. Therefore, it's
not always necessary to submit each page individually to those engines.
However, if you create doorway pages that link to your home page
but are not linked to in return, you'll need to submit those pages
individually, or create a page with visible or hidden links to each
of your doorway pages.
MAKE SURE EVERYTHING'S READY FIRST. Since many engines take
weeks to index a page, you might be tempted to jump the gun on a
new site and submit it before you've got all your pages done. Be
careful about this, since if an engine spiders your site and doesn't
find your home page or the page you specify, most will not try again
later. In addition, many engines will immediately verify whether
your page exists and reject your submission that same day. Of course,
they are rarely nice enough to warn you of the problem.
SPAMMING: Some engines are reported to have started watching
for people submitting too many pages at once. They sometimes limit
you on how many you can submit per day or week. They may also look
for people submitting too many similar pages and ban sites that
they feel are abusing the system. Therefore, it's always best to
proceed with caution and submit only as many variations of a page
as absolutely necessary to achieve your goal.
How to Avoid Trouble
While planning your website promotion strategy, it is wise to remember
that the search engines are very capable of sniffing out when someone
is trying to trick or deceive them. A certain road to disaster is
to consciously try to fool search engines into giving you a better
listing. While this may work for a short period of time, invariably
the scheme is found out and the offending site is severely penalized
or even banned altogether. Most of us are not, however, intentionally
engaged in trying to scam search engines. Even so, there are mistakes
that an honest user can make which are nonetheless interpreted as
intentional and malicious behavior. Here are some of the things
you can do to ensure that you will never be penalized or banned
by the search engines.
First and most important, don't over-submit your site. The search
engines each have their own procedures and lead times for adding
new sites to their indices. Some may immediately add you while others
may take months to list your site, so be patient. They are happy
to accept your submission because it adds to the resources they
can offer to their users. But submitting your site to them repeatedly
in an attempt to get their attention will only get you penalized
or banned. Generally, a submission once a month to each of the search
engines and directories on your list is sufficient. Some link pages
may allow you to submit more frequently. The only full proof method
is using AddWebs Scheduler, it will keep track on how often you
submit to each engine, and accordingly to engine type it will advise
you when to submit again. Another way that well-intentioned users
get into trouble is by submitting too many pages at once.
In most cases, it is only necessary to submit the URL of your home
page. Search engine spiders are then sent to crawl through the site
to examine the links and other content of the site. While there
are certain search engines that will allow you to submit as many
pages of your site as you like, the majority do not. Any pages submitted
beyond the home page or doorway will be interpreted as submission
"Spam," and will promptly get you penalized or banned.
Submit only your homepage or doorway page. However, as a side note,
never submit a doorway page to Yahoo!™. Each site submitted
to Yahoo!™ is reviewed by a breathing human being. This is
yet another reason not to try to deceive the search engines.
Some ways of trying to deceive engines have become commonplace.
One such tactic is to endlessly repeat keywords over and over again
on the home page text, then trying to hide it by making it the same
color as the page background. There was a time when this was a commonly
used tactic, and it may have worked for a while. However, the search
engines caught on and they now know how to detect obvious deception
such as this. Don't try this because it will get you penalized or
banned. The same will be true for any new tactics that surface and
try to subvert search engine analysis methods. Some unethical webmasters
have resorted to using meta-keywords in their sites that have no
relevance whatsoever to their actual content. This is highly misguided
and has potentially drastic consequences for the engines that are
trying to return relevant results on a query. Guerilla tactics like
this might work for a short time but the search engines will catch
on and you will be penalized or worse. Remember that many search
engines share common indices of listings. If you get your site banned
on one of these engines, chances are that you will be banned on
several engines at once.
Other elements of your website can cause you trouble if you're not
careful. Some web sites still use a "Frames" format. Frames
may look nice, and they can help novices to organize their sites,
but they are devastating to your site's ability to get a good position
in a search engine index. Most search engine spiders simply cannot
make sense of frames-based pages and therefore make a well-intentioned
but frequently useless attempt at trying to determine what the website
is about. The consequence is that the site usually is not indexed
at all or it is indexed at such a poor position that no one will
ever see it. If you must use a frames-based website, be sure to
build a doorway page that has no frames in it. You can use WebPosition
Page Generator to do this for you.
By building your page with a little forethought, you can avoid any
pitfalls and should be safe from any conflicts with the search engines.
If you follow these simple steps, not only will you avoid being
banned by search engines, but you should also start to see your
position rising to the top!
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