The landscape of search engines is ever-evolving. Just when you think you've mastered the rules, they change. Recently, many leading search engines and directories have started charging for website submissions. What was once a free service could now set you back by $199. This fee doesn't guarantee a top spot, but merely a place in the index. Some even take your money with the promise of only reviewing your site, not necessarily listing it.
Several search engines and directories that were once independent have been acquired by other companies or use their search results on their own sites. Keeping track of who owns what and who's charging for submissions can be a daunting task. Let's delve into the current state of major players in the search engine world.
Excite has partnered with LookSmart. By submitting your site here, you'll also get listed with LookSmart's network of partner sites such as Alta Vista, MSN, WebCrawler, and Magellan. They offer three levels of submission services. Express submit guarantees a review within two business days for $199. Basic Submission costs $99 and takes longer, with sites being reviewed in approximately eight weeks. Excite still offers a free service with no guarantee of a listing.
AltaVista is one of LookSmart's partner sites. Here, you'll be presented with the same submission prices as at Excite. They do allow you to submit your site for free with no guarantee of a listing.
HotBot allows you to submit your site to the Inktomi web page database, which is HotBot's partner. Another way of getting listed here is to submit your site to "The Open Directory Project". Submission is still free at this time.
The Open Directory Project is a good place to get listed due to the size and number of other search engines and directories that use its contents, such as AOL and Hotbot. Remember, it's a directory and all submissions are reviewed by a human. Submission is free.
Northern Light remains unchanged. They don't ask for your money, but they also don't make it easy for you to find the submission page. Submission is free if you can find it.
Lycos allows free submissions, but it can take up to 2 or 3 weeks for your URL to show up in their index.
Yahoo no longer allows free submissions of commercial websites. Business Express listing is $199, with adult sites being charged a whopping $600 for the same privilege. Sites are reviewed within seven days with no guarantee of a listing.
InfoSpace allows free submissions, but you'll need to fill out a lengthy form to get listed. Infospace also uses results from The Open Directory Project and Inktomi's database.
Google allows free submissions with no guarantee of a listing. This is an important one as Yahoo pulls results from Google's directory as well as their own.
Ask Jeeves allows people to search by asking questions. Since it's backed by humans, you need to submit your site by email along with its URL and short description. No guarantee of a listing but definitely worth a shot due to Ask Jeeves' popularity.
By focusing on getting your site listed with these major players, you'll ensure your site is everywhere it needs to be for optimum search engine traffic. However, getting it listed at the top is a different challenge altogether, and a topic for another article.
Website Updates are a SNAP With Server Side Includes
If you ever had to make a change to your website that neededto be carried onto every page, you know what a tedious job ... have I got news for you. It doesn't have to be. ... the world of
De-Spam Your Inbox: "How to Fight the Spam War and Win!"
Spam, Spam ... what's a person to do? If you'rean online ... odds are your mailbox is ... daily with Spam. The longer you've been ... theNet and the more visible you've
"How's Your Sense of Style?"
No, I'm not ... to your wardrobe here, but to ... style sheets, also known as CSS. ... by the World Wide Web ... it allows ... to separate site layout from the design.
