Step 5: Search Engine Submission
Although this is optional, it will help you get your website listed in search engines and online directories: therefore allowing your website to get found more easily.
Firstly, the difference between a search engine and a directory: a search engine automatically collects web pages and automatically lists them in order of keyword density, relevancy, etc when a person searches for a particular keyword/phrase; directories list web pages/sites manually when a web publisher requests for their web page/site to be added to the directory.
Search engines: e.g. Google, Ask Jeeves.
Online directory: e.g. Yahoo!
Once your website is ‘live’ (i.e. can be viewed on the Internet), it will more than likely be picked up by search engines within the first few weeks. However, it is always worth submitting your website directly to the search engines so that they are aware of your website. This can be done by visiting the home page of a search engine and looking for the ‘submit link’ or ‘add url’ link where you can simply enter/submit your domain name(s).
As Google is the most popular search engine, this would be a good place to start: visit the following link to submit your website address to Google:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Search engines allow you to submit your website for free. However, online directories will charge you for EACH submission to almost guarantee that your website will be listed (yes – almost guarantee!). Yahoo! Directory Submit charges a one-time fee of $299.00 for each submission which will list your website (with description) within a particular category (i.e. finance, travel, cars, etc). Again, this fee does not necessarily mean that you will be listed – but more than often, it will.
The Open Directory (DMOZ) is also a useful directory to submit your website. Submission is free of charge and although not many people use this directory to find what they are looking for, it does play an important role. A majority of search engines such as Alta Vista, Lycos, AOL, and Google retrieve listings from DMOZ to add to their own listings. Therefore by submitting your site to DMOZ, you are likely to be found within all the search engines listed above.
Visit http://dmoz.org/ for more details.
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