Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum.

I was wondering what is the best way to submit sites to Google-via their own free submission, or by way of WebPosition or AddWeb?

Also, my site has numerous pages, but when I go to Google to get a URL/Link count, my numbers are very low. Any suggestions. The site I manage is www.leathercat.com.

Thanks for any advise!

Originally posted by leathercat
Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum.

I was wondering what is the best way to submit sites to Google-via their own free submission, or by way of WebPosition or AddWeb?

Also, my site has numerous pages, but when I go to Google to get a URL/Link count, my numbers are very low. Any suggestions. The site I manage is www.leathercat.com.

Thanks for any advise!

Welcome to the forum leathercat,

I'm guessing your site is very new? I suggest that you use
Google's addurl.html page.

Your next step would be, in my opinion, to find some niche
directories and submit your site to them.

The longer your site is online and the more links Google finds
pointing to it, the more of your pages it will index, at least, that's
my perception of how it works.

Bompa

Thanks for the pointer about submitting to Google via their addurl. Question: when we get a link on another site, we're supposed to submit that link to google. But, do I submit the actual URL of where our link is (ex: .com/links.htm), or do I just submit their main URL & hope Google spiders & finds us listed on the links page - where ever that may be (in some cases)?

Originally posted by leathercat
Thanks for the pointer about submitting to Google via their addurl. Question: when we get a link on another site, we're supposed to submit that link to google. But, do I submit the actual URL of where our link is (ex: .com/links.htm), or do I just submit their main URL & hope Google spiders & finds us listed on the links page - where ever that may be (in some cases)?

No, no, no. Where did you hear that??


Never submit a url that is not your own. Just submit your homepage url and that's it, forever and ever.

Great site for the items you have and I think you might look at our http://www.firststopshops.com/ site to promote it in also. As for submissions I would agree with the above comments but also review your Meta tags and our http://www.auxic.com/fa_metatags.htm article about them. Your title and description are all wrong to what most search engines go by when they use them and may be hurting your overall rating. Hope this helps.

LeatherCat - If you minimize your linking targets to sites that are already within the Google database then you don't need to worry about submitting them (which is not a good idea anyway).

Also, submit your site to the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org). A ranking is tough to achieve, but if you can get it then it can go a long way in producing rankings on other engines such as Google.

I'll check out the links that were posted.

One other thing - I have been trying & trying to get our site listed in the Open Directory, to no avail. It seems that there is no editor for my category (Shopping: Clothing: Leather). I've almost applied to be the editor of that category (and I'm still thinking about it).

If there are any comments on how to get listed in the Open Directory, PLEASE, let me know!

Thank & happy New Year!

Originally posted by auxic
Great site for the items you have and I think you might look at our firststopshops.com site to promote it in also. As for submissions I would agree with the above comments but also review your Meta tags and our auxic.com/fa_metatags.htm article about them. Your title and description are all wrong to what most search engines go by when they use them and may be hurting your overall rating. Hope this helps.

Google has absolutely nothing to do with meta-tags. That's hardly a good advert for yourself.

As for the original question - www.google.com/addurl.html will do fine - but Google will pick the link the link up from any other indexed page on the web, and follow it.

Originally posted by I, Brian Google has absolutely nothing to do with meta-tags...

In your opinion.

Google will reference the meta-description for the display of *some* SERPs - but so far as I know, you won't find any Professional SEO claim that meta-description or meta-keywords are used at all by Google for ranking purposes.

Meta-tags are worth using simply to help catch traffic from the smaller engines, some of which do still reference meta-tags. So it's a natural part of the general SEO process. But not for Google.

Originally posted by I, Brian
Google will reference the meta-description for the display of *some* SERPs - but so far as I know, you won't find any Professional SEO claim that meta-description or meta-keywords are used at all by Google for ranking purposes.

Hi Brian, that statement seems contradictory since SERPs and ranking purposes are one and the same, no?

Also, if you believe professional SEOs, that's fine, however, many of us don't. We realize that the descriptive title 'professional' does not mean the person has more knowledge of Google's algorythm; all it really means is that they get a fee for SEO.

Meta-tags are worth using simply to help catch traffic from the smaller engines, some of which do still reference meta-tags. So it's a natural part of the general SEO process. But not for Google.

Brian, I know that just about everyone says that meta tags are not used by Google, but when I ask them how they know that, the answer is always the same: "that's what everyone says". In some areas of life, it's okay to follow popular opinion, in other areas, it's not a good idea. Either way, one should know if they are going on facts or opinion.

I've found SEO forums to be mostly speculation based on the speculations of others.

That is not my idea of reliable information and a few of us would like to keep the facts separate from the opinions; that's why I replied to your post that it was your opinion.

No offense meant.

Bompa

Hi Bompa -

No problem - and you are absolutely right about the SEO process being speculative. And to be honest, SEO forums are often a place where people parrot information among one another, rather than test it out themselves.

I haven't personally tested meta-tags - so in this instance I am certainly as bad as anyone else. I learned my basic SEO at Sitepoint forums from Chris Beasley, and he'd run some tests on the issue.

However, since Florida, anything's worth testing again. I'll get onto that.