Although there are thousands of search services on the "Net, in truth, there are only seven or eight that really matter when it comes to drumming up business for your website. Every day millions of people use these major search services to find what they need on the Net, and if you can achieve a top ranking on any of these services, it will go a long way to maximizing the amount of targeted traffic you get to your site. 

The method you use to register with the top search engines is largely determined by the way they are programmed to operate. Because most search engines are essentially robots, they can be programmed to work a certain way. The data used to program a search engine is called an algorithm. From time to time, the powers-that-be behind the major search engines alter these algorithms, which makes predicting what will work and what won't work in registering with a particular engine a bit dicey. 

Keeping tabs on the way the big eight are programmed to operate is a full time job and best left to the die-hard search engine experts out there. Because of their importance and because of the complexity of effectively utilizing their unique features, if you aim to achieve and maintain top positions on these engines, you're really best off using a professional positioning service. Believe me, the benefits will far outweigh the cost. 

But if doing so is beyond your current means and you'd like to give it the good old college try yourself, here are some recent submission recommendations, excerpted from an article "Submitting to the Search Engines, The Right Way" by Boris Chow, a seasoned Internet marketer and member of the Internet Marketing Challenge Think Tank. 

The "Big Eight" 

1. Yahoo
2. Inktomi (database feeds over 300 engines including AOL, MSN, NBCi, iWon, LookSmart, About, HotBot, Overture non-paid listings, CNET, ICQ and more...) 
3. Google 
4. Excite / LookSmart 
5. AltaVista 
6. ODP (Open Directory Project) 
7. Fast (database feeds results to Lycos) 
8. Northern Light (a distant last and least important of the eight)

These 8 major search engines are used by roughly 95% of all people searching on the Web. In other words, if you aren't submitting to these top 8, it doesn't matter how many search engines you submit your pages to, the traffic to your site will be nominal. Even if you submit to no other engines and do a good job with just these major search engines and directories, your site will be successful - assuming of course that you have a topic or product that people are interested in and are searching for on a regular basis.

Not only should you make sure that you submit your top pages to these top engines, but there is actually a logical order in which you should submit to them. Why the specific order? Because many search engine databases these days are overlapped. For example, MSN search receives results from both Inktomi and LookSmart but displays results from each in a specific order, according to criteria.

This is called the "blurring effect," where criteria is based on the relevancy of your page. Basically, this means that if one engine finds you in both databases, it considers your page to be more significant. From there, the criteria weights one engine more than the other. The higher up you are in that engine the more relevant you become in the other.

Anyway, here is the submission order that is recommended:

1. Inktomi - Use the paid entry program.

Quick Facts:  

Inktomi is the first engine you should submit to because it feeds some major portals and search services such as... 

NBCi: http://www.NBCi.com  

MSN: (Microsoft Network) http://search.msn.com  

Hotbot: http://www.hotbot.com  
 
IWon.com: http://www.iwon.com  

AOL Search: http://aol.com  

Looksmart: http://looksmart.com 

Plus many other services and portals, such as About, Overture, CNET and ICQ. It also supplies results to over 300 other smaller portals run by ISP's. 

Submission guidelines:  

Inktomi's paid inclusion service http://www.www.marketleap.com/inktomi/searchsubmit.htm. For $39 you can submit your URL and be listed in just 48 hours. (Read Ken Evoy's article "Is Free & Low-Cost Traffic Dead? Not Even Close!" for a clever way around this!)

2. Excite / LookSmart  

Quick Facts:  

Excite (http://www.excite.com) makes some use of the Meta description tag. Having keywords in your title tag plays some importance in ranking. Excite has been exceedingly slow to update their index. There have been waits as long as 6 months for pages to get indexed, although they claim an average time of 2 weeks, this has not been the case for some time. They appear to only be accepting the main pages from domains, so submitting sub pages won't do you any good. 

Link popularity plays a role in your ranking on Excite. The more quality links to your page from other sites, the better chances you have of achieving a higher ranking. Excite puts a lot of emphasis on URL's that have the keyword in the URL itself. Pages with keywords in the URL tend to score and rank much higher than those that don't. Excite looks for keywords in links, headlines and the actual body text of the page, and only then your title tag. 

LookSmart (http://looksmart.com) operates on a pay-per-click basis now, with a $94 start-up fee required (a $49 set up fee, and $45 minimum account deposit). Minimum monthly charge is set at $15. Initially, this might sound like a cheaper alternative to Yahoo!'s $299 listing fee, but unless have a site with a very esoteric theme (one that is unlikely to get much targeted traffic, you'll find your minimum monthly allotment of clicks used up in a few days, at which point LookSmart suspends your account - either until the start of the next billing period, or until you top up your account.

Submission guidelines:  

Use the paid inclusion program. Submitting your site through this service will save you time because this one step submits your page to both Excite and LookSmart, which also supplies results to AltaVista, MSN, and iWon.

Their review/inclusion time frame is 48 hours which means that they will review your site within 48 hours and, assuming it passes review, they'll include it in their directory. You can find info on the paid inclusion program here: http://listings.looksmart.com/?synd=none&chan=lshomebus.

3. AltaVista  

Quick Facts:  

Once one of the big 3 search engines, AltaVista is now down to market share in the 1.x percent range. Whether they are able to bounce back is anybody's guess. They recently have shown some signs of turning things around but only time will tell. 

You can no longer use automated submission software to submit your pages to AV. You must submit manually from their site by using a code that is often difficult to read. You can submit as many pages as you want and they allow up to 5 per code. Want to submit more? Just get another code. 

The Title tag is very important to AltaVista. Your keywords MUST be in your Title tag. If they are not, your page won't be found. Making certain your main keywords appear at the beginning of your Body text is also very important. Alta Vista does index Meta tags but treats them no differently than any other text on your page. 

AltaVista tends to favor longer pages rich in meaningful content. Your home page has the best chance of achieving a high ranking in Altavista.

Submission guidelines:  

Use the free addurl service at: http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new. Don't expect to see your site turn up in AltaVista for at least 4 to 6 weeks. 

4. Yahoo!  

I am not going to go into any detail here on this MOST POPULAR search service, because we cover it extensively in an upcoming tutorial of its own: Yahoo Listing Secrets & Strategies

Submission guidelines:  

Just a few comments here. If you are operating a site that can in any way be construed as commercial, be sure to use the Business Express submit gateway at Yahoo (https://ecom.yahoo.com/fast/add) because this is the fastest way to get listed. Always keep in mind that Yahoo can be a finicky directory to get listed in but it's worth the money. A good listing in Yahoo can provide your site with a significant amount of traffic.

Make sure you read our tutorial before you submit. You can only submit your home page. And if you make a mistake, the editors will not reconsider, so you might want to consider Sumantra Roy's...

YAHOO REGISTRATION SERVICE!

1stSeachRanking offers a service specifically designed to help Webmasters secure an optimum Yahoo! listing. If you're serious about building lots of laser targeted traffic to your site, this service is a must!

5. DMOZ - The Open Directory Project  

Quick Facts:  

The ODP has rapidly become one of the most important search engines. It is a directory based engine much like Yahoo. Every submission is reviewed by a real person. Unlike Yahoo, however, if you submit your page according to ODP's guidelines, you're very likely to get listed within a few weeks, although this time frame has been slowing down considerably as their staff of volunteer editors is in a constant state of flux. 

Now, you may be asking yourself why the ODP is so important, since you never use it to perform searches and you don't hear the name bandied about much. Well, there's a very good reason. ODP provides search results for many of the major search engines, such as AOL Search, Netscape Search, Hotbot, Lycos, and Google. In fact, over 100 major and second tier search engines make use of the ODP's listings. Getting listed in AOL Search alone is reason enough to get listed in the ODP. Whether you are an AOL member or not, there are close to 30 million people using AOL. Ignore them at your own peril! 

Submission guidelines:  

There are some common sense tips you can use to insure that you get listed at ODP. The most important of these is to make certain you are submitting to the appropriate category. Submitting to a category that doesn't fit with your site will get you rejected. Remember, the reviewers are all volunteers and you don't want to make their jobs any more difficult than they already are. They are giving their time to get YOUR site listed. 

Submit only your home page. Make certain your title and description are appropriate and not just an ad. Much like on Yahoo, it is best if you use your actual business name in the title, while trying to incorporate as many of your important keywords as possible into the description. Make sure you proof read the form BEFORE submitting it. You get one chance. Do it right!

The ODP will tend to favor professional looking sites. If your text is hard to read or even hard on the eyes of the editor, there's a strong chance they will ignore your submission. Make your site as user friendly as possible. If you are marketing an affiliate program, chances are ODP will ignore you. ODP wants original sites and your own domain. 

If you haven't been accepted, don't resubmit your site every day or even once per week, wait a few weeks and submit again. If after 2 or 3 submissions you do not see your site listed, email the category editor. The category editors are listed at the bottom of the page from which you initiated the submission process. 

ODP is a great resource and one which can deliver a LOT of targeted traffic from it's affiliated search engines. Play by their rules and it is likely your site will get listed without too long of a wait. (Of course, it's easier to get into ODP after you've been accepted to Yahoo. After all, if the mighty editors at Yahoo likes your site, how can the lowly editors at ODP find fault with it?) You can submit your site for free at http://dmoz.org/add.html.

6. Fast - All the Web (powers Lycos) 

Quick Facts:  

Lycos now draws it's results from the Fast All the Web database. Many of you may not have heard of Fast, but in my opinion they are second only to Google in returning quality relevant results. 

Thanks to the partnership with Fast, Lycos has again become an important factor in search engine traffic as updates now occur within weeks, as opposed to several months prior to their use of the Fast index. 

Having your important keywords in your URL seems to play major role in getting a higher ranking with Lycos. Having a high keyword density in the body of your page also plays a major factor. It is also important that your keywords appear in your TITLE.

Submission guidelines:  

You can submit your page at: http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php . They allow virtually unlimited submissions - up to 50 pages a day.

7. Google   

Quick Facts:  

Google is now *the* dominant search engine on the Web. Not only do most people use it for search, but it also provides web page results at Yahoo, so a good listing on Google has double the effect because it gives you instant recognition in Yahoo. Google's current market share is about 15%, which is second only to Yahoo in it's ability to generate traffic. It also provides results for AOL search, so it's VITAL that you get listed on Google. It's popularity and use continue to increase on a monthly basis. 

The Google search engine does not make use of Meta tags at all. They are 100% useless as far as Google is concerned. If your keywords on the text of your page make use of BOLD text or larger text, this tends to carry more weight with Google and will help your ranking for those keywords. 

The number of links - and especially quality links - to your site plays a major role in how Google ranks your site. If you have 1 link from Yahoo or Amazon.com, this would carry a lot more weight than 100 links from pages that only get limited traffic. The more quality links you can get, the more likely your page is to receive a high ranking with Google. 

Submission guidelines:  

Because Google assigns more relevancy to pages with link popularity, it's important to exercise patience and already have your other (above) submissions in place before submitting to this engine. Submission is straightforward - you can only submit your home page. (Google will automatically add your other pages (in time) provided they are linked-to from the home page.)

Google's free submission page: http://www.google.com/addurl.html 

Google Information for Webmasters: http://www.google.com/webmasters/ 

Add your site to Google UK: http://www.google.co.uk/addurl.html 

Google is not particularly fast when it comes to indexing your page, so you can expect to wait 1-3 months to see your site listed. 

8. Northern Light

Quick Facts:  

Northern Light is, by far the least significant of the "majors" - a distant last from the big dogs listed above. Regardless, it isn't a difficult engine to get listed in and that being the case, it could be worthwhile since it does send some traffic - unlike most of the remaining search engines and directories that send virtually no traffic whatsoever. 

Northern Light does not support Meta tags. Northern Light places a lot of emphasis on your TITLE tag so make sure your important keywords are in the TITLE tag. Northern Light does not index text inside the ALT tags.

Submission guidelines:  

Submit to Northern Light for free at: http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html 

Northern Light is one of the few major search engines that allows virtually unlimited submissions (up to 50 pages) without penalties. The average indexing time varies but has recently been averaging about 3-6 weeks.

A great article to read to update you on the latest Search Engine trends when it comes to submissions is Ken Evoy's, "Is Free & Low-Cost Traffic Dead? Not Even Close!"