Pam Van Londen, Corvallis Artist, Oregon Artist. Creating Every Day…paintings, web sites, and courses Oregon daily painter, murals and portraits. Corvallis Web Designer / Web Developer. Original abstract landscape oil paintings

Submitting to search engines and online directories

Posted in Knowledge Base and Promotion 5 years, 8 months ago at 3:43 pm

Readings

Search Engine Watch
Articles, reports, newsletters, for members and non members.
Robotstxt.org
Helping promote the Robot Exclusion Standard.
The Unusually Useful Web Book
June Cohen. New Riders. 2003.
Pages 310, 313 to 315.
250 HTML and Web Design Secrets
Molly E Holzschlag. Wiley Publishing. 2004.
Pages 354 to 355.

As you can tell from the first reading, the task of submitting to and monitoring placement on search engines changes often. Here’s the process I went through with my last client:

  1. Build a table (or spreadsheet) with all major search engines listed. Add columns for:
    • URL to the submitting page(s)
    • Date you submitted
    • Notes about what you submitted
    • Placement after 1 week, 1 month, 1 year
  2. Follow submission instructions for each major Search Engine. Sometimes submitting to one will list you in others. Check periodically to see which search engine is the most popular.
    • Google
      • Only resubmit to Google when you’ve had a major site change.
    • Yahoo
    • Dmoz
    • MSN / Inktomi / Submit-it.com
    • Bing
    • Industry-related directories.
    • If your location matters, then consider submitting to Geocities and similar geographical directories.
  3. Save confirmation emails with userID and passwords if any. Keep them organized so you can quickly maintain the listings.
  4. Search for your site within these directories regularly to see how you’re placing.
  5. Adjust your site as needed to rank higher (see Launching and Promoting a Site).

Remember that search engines will find you when you least expect it; meaning you don’t always have to submit, and if you don’t want to be listed, you’ve better add the special meta tag that keeps the robots out:

  • <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow” />