The Other Search Engines

**byte4byte** · 11-15-2005, 05:46 PM

I come to you all with my tail between my legs; I'm a graphic designer/illustrator and I also build web sites for small to medium-sized businesses. The medium sized businesses have always taken care of their own search engine submission; I've only submitted the small sites I've created to Google. [The more I learn about site submission -- which still is sketchy at best -- the more I feel like I've been negligent.]

I now have a client whose site was completed July 2005, and he wants me to help him with submitting his site to search engines... I'm not sure where to begin, which are best, and how many are out there. I believe that Google, Altavista, Yahoo Alltheweb, Lycos, DMOZ, AOL, Netscape, Teoma, and Hotbot are free [Google being the most important]. And his site has been submitted to Google [I submitted it on completion of his site and again today... was that a bad thing to do, submit it twice?] I had tried searching for it about 2 months ago with poor results, and today the results were no different... he didn't even show up in the top 100 of fairly specific search terms.

Where should I go from here? Just submit his url to these other search engines? Last time I spoke with him he wasn't interested in pay-per-click, because he heard horror stories of people whose sites were 'clicked' on but it didn't generate business and they ended up with unnecessary bills.

If anyone can give me some guidance on what to do, I would really appreciate your time.

Big thanks in advance!

**sarge299** · 11-16-2005, 12:33 AM

I am guessing that this site is also optimized for the search engines as well.
Submitting is not enough - you have to be sure your title and description tags are done well. Is there content on the site for the search engines to look at? Plus many other SEO techniques.

You don't need to submit to google - if the client has links on other sites ranked with google then google will find the site. Submitting won't hurt but it won't speed things up either.

Have you done a site search on google site:www.domainname.com
This will at least show if the site is indexed at all.

I am also a big defender of the smaller search engines. Submit to them. Theres about 45 or so that are worth submitting to. By doing this, when google does changes and updates the client will at least have traffic from the smaller engines.

There are many ways to get listed faster, have inbound links to the site etc.
take a look around the web and you will find many resources to direct your client to.

Again, just don't put your eggs all in one google basket. Theres plenty of room in the baskets of yahoo, MSN , exactseek and others.

Good luck
Jim

**byte4byte** · 11-17-2005, 10:28 AM

Thanks Jim, great advice.

Yes, the url search shows up in google, believe the metatags are set up correctly, and the content was worded very carefully with searching in mind. So now it's a matter of me making the submissions.

I'll let you know how it goes; thanks again!
b4b

**click2britain** · 02-19-2006, 01:28 PM

Hi,

You can also start submitting to small search engines (Like Jim said above) & Directories as well. The most important directories are dmoz.org & yahoo & followed by other main FREE/Paid/Niche directories.

The following site provide you with list of directories in alphabetical or Page Rank order.

http://www.info-sales.co.uk

I hope this helps...

**vangogh** · 02-19-2006, 02:26 PM

b4b there's a lot more to showing up in the search engine results than submitting to search engines. In fact if you have a few links out there pointing to the site you really don't need to submit at all.

What you need to do for the site to show up more is optimize your pages for the keywords for your site and work on increasing backlinks to the site.

SEO doesn't happen overnight and there's a lot to learn. It doesn't have to be overly conplicated, but it's not a trivial process. There is a lot to learn though so you may want to start reading some of the posts here and at other forums.

Submitting your site to directories is a good way to start, but don't get hung up on any one directory. Submit to them according to their guidelines and then move on to the next driectory.

**byte4byte** · 02-21-2006, 01:03 PM

Thanks click2britain, I'll check out the link; and vangogh, I've implemented the keyword info and reciprocal links. I've checked my metatags and title descriptions, etc. through free online scripts and seem to be headed in the right direction. I appear within the top ten, if not the top 3, in a number of different keyword searches.

Thanks again sarge299 [Jim]; sorry I didn't get back to you earlier to convey my successes due to your help, but I was busy rebuilding some files that I lost in a full hard-drive crash in November, right after making these posts.

I think from what I've learned, SEO isn't so much difficult as it is painstaking, meticulous and a bit on the creative side in stepping back and looking at the landscape of your target market(s), what you have to present online, and solving the problem of using the most obvious as well as clever tactics to get your audience to you.

You guyz are all great, thanks!
b4b

**byte4byte** · 03-29-2006, 06:12 PM

Jim, click2britain, vangogh... thanks to you 3, I'm showing up at the top of the search engines for a number of keyword searches.

I still need to tweak a couple of things, but I've done the meta optimizing, the submitting, the big engines, the little engines, the reciprocal linking, getting linked to local sites, I learned how to write a robots.txt file... and as a result, I range from #1 to #3 for my primary key words, or it links to an affiliate site where I'm in the top 3.

As a result I've had a number of hits through affiliate sites, people have written reviews [good ones

], and I just landed a good-sized contract due to the reciprocal linking.

What makes me really smile is when I rank higher than my much-larger corporate competition

I really can't thank you enough, I have learned so much over the last 4 months from visiting this site.

Thank you! {{{""""}}} <-- That's a warm fuzzy hug!

**vangogh** · 03-30-2006, 12:14 AM

Congrats and glad we could help. You really are right in that seo isn't so much hard as it is painstaking. I think the hardest part of seo is really sorting through all the misinformation. We all want to be #1 and when you first hear about seo it seems like there's just some magic formulas that if you apply your site will rise to the top. That may have even been true in the early days of search, but not anymore.

Congrats again. By the way I'm a big Frank Llyod Wright fan. His 'form follows function' is really at the core of my design philosophy.

**affhelper** · 05-09-2006, 04:52 PM

Why would you even try to submit your site to search engines when it will be found through your links back to your site?

I also have heard that those urls that have been found through other
websites will perform better in search results. Is that true?

What do you think?

**madkad** · 05-09-2006, 04:59 PM

lol what year was this thread made

all depends on what the site is, if its related to the site with links on there and what PR it is