Web site submission

Why site submission?

This section is designed for those interested in search engine promotion. Site submission is the process of bringing your site to the attention of search engines and directories. It's the next step after optimization in search engine positioning.

Start submitting your site

Site submission

Site submission is the process of suggesting a site to a search engine. Usually you fill out a form telling the search engine's spider to visit and index the suggested site. Submitting your site greatly improves the likelihood that it will appear in users' search results.

Optimize, optimize, optimize

Search engines all use different formulas for indexing and ranking sites. Each one considers a multitude of factors in devising its own unique formula.

To score high with search engines you'll need to optimize, or modify your site's HTML code and other features the engines consider when composing their rankings. You should never submit a site without optimizing first. If you've already submitted your non-optimized site, you can resubmit later.

Submit to whom?

After optimization, it's time to submit your site. We recommend submitting to all the major search engines, since about 90% of search-engine-generated traffic comes from 15-20 search sites.

You can also submit your site to country-specific or topical search engines for targeted results. If you decide to submit to small search engines, use an automated tool such as URLsubmitter to do the job.

How to submit

Top search engines have standard forms for site suggestions. A link to a search engine's submission form can usually be found on its home page labeled "Add a site" or "Suggest a URL."

Submission forms will usually ask you for a URL, your e-mail address, your site's name and the category it fits into. Whenever you fill out a submission form, double-check to make sure you specified the right URL to be spidered.

It's helpful to keep records of the date, time and outcome of each of your submissions. You may need this information if you have to send follow-up email to a search engine's staff.

The next step

Search engines with automated submission forms aren't the only types of search sites out there. Directories and pay-per-click engines can increase traffic to your site as well.

An Overview

Site submission procedures