Search Engine Optimization Book

Chapter

5

SEO BOOK

Interacting with Search Engines

Most pages that get submitted to search engines are spam. There is no guarantee that your site will get included for free just by submitting it.

The best way to get listed is to build relevant inbound linkage data pointing at your site.

Yahoo! is currently the only majore search engine to offer a paid inclusion program through

Overture

. The Overture paid service powers all of the Yahoo search properties. In addition to a $49 inclusion fee, they also charge a category based price per click. Usually paid inclusion is not worth it for most sites.

The best way to submit your site to search engines is by having them find links into your site from other sites. There is no need to submit or resubmit your site to search engines.

Directories vs. Search Engines

Search engines are operated by scripts and machine code. Directories are human compiled lists of sites organized by categories. Since directories are entirely human edited they take a ton of time and effort to maintain. Whenever I create a new site and I am happy with it I submit it to many of the directories. A few of the larger directories are listed in the next section. In addition here is a

relationship chart

to show how the largest search engines and directories interact.

When submitting to directories it is worth it to spend the extra time to ensure you are in the correct category and are following the directory guidelines. Here are the

DMOZ guidelines

.

Submitting Your Site

Submitting to Search Engines:

You may want to pay to submit your site, but most search engines will list your site free. The best way to get your site indexed

is through having a search engine follow a link from another site

. Toward the end of this book I will also address another option called paid inclusion.

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