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Before answering this question we have to know what is the difference between a search engine and directory. Here is a brief explanation.
Main difference between search engine and directory lay is the way
websites get entered into their index. People submit their sites
to the directories, which are reviewed by human editors. Think of
the directories as collections of Internet sites organized by
subject. Search engines work by sending out a spider to fetch as
many documents as possible.
Following, another program called an indexer, reads these
documents and creates an index based on the words contained in
each document.
Having said that, let’s see why you should not submit your site to
the Search Engines.
More than 90% of the search engines traffic comes from three major
search engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
You can see many ads on the Internet which look like this:
submit your site on X00.000 search engines.
Submitting your site on hundreds of thousands of search engines
wouldn’t help and is simply not worthwhile. Save
your money as you would do when you see ads like:
loose weight while you sleep.
These three search engines provide results for many other search
engines, and if you are listed on these three search
engines, your site will be listed on many other search engines as
well.
Altavista for example show results from the Yahoo! index. Rankings
are not the same, because the algorithm is
different but the index is the same. If your site is new and is
listed on Yahoo but not on Altavista, be patient and do
nothing. Altavista will show your site when they update their
index from yahoo. AOL (America On Line) and Netscape use Google
index. They additionally receive listings from DMOZ. There are
many examples.
The so called Meta search engines like DogPile or Metacrawler are
showing results from Google and Yahoo amongst. These search
engines actually search the top search engines and show combined
results.
If your site is not new, there is a chance that search engines
spiders already find your site and index it. So
before doing anything check if your site is already listed, even
if you did not submit your site to any search engine.
But what should you do if your site is just uploaded?
As we already explained search engines are equipped with spiders
which will find on your site. All you need is to
submit your site in Directories, and search engines spiders will
find your link and your site will be indexed. But be sure to
provide enough "food" for the spiders. That is, submit your site
in enough directories, and you will make
that process shorter.
While submission to the search engines is wasting of your time,
submission to the directories is not. You will benefit
from submitting your site to Directories, not only because search
engines will find your link there and index your site,
but you will also increase your link popularity. Search engines
consider each link which is pointing to your site as
kind of vote and give it a "credit"for each "vote".
That’s why you should submit your site to as many directories you
can. However, don’t expect bulk traffic from
the directories. Even the biggest directories like Yahoo! or DMOZ
are not able to deliver load of traffics. On the other
side, traffic delivered though the directories is usually quality
traffic, because these people are browsing to the
find products or services that you offer.
Submitting your site more than once to search engines might slow
down indexing time. If you still want to submit your
site to search engines, do that just once, and do that manually.
Companies which advertise that they will submit
your site on X00.000 will not do that manually, that is for sure.
They use automated submission software, even all major search
engines mention in their submission guidelines that you should
submit your site manually. And major search engines are what you
should care for only. You remember the fact where the over 90% of
traffic comes from?
Remember that only submitting your site to the search engines does
nothing to increase your ranking in most cases. If web site
optimization on your web site is not properly implemented or is
not implemented at all chances are small that your site will be on
first few pages with results. And having in mind that only about
7% of the people look further then third page, top is the only
place you want to be.
How to calculate if the search engine optimization is worth to
invest in? Consider this: What is the annual worth of one
customer to you?" Is it 25 €, 250 €, or perhaps 2500 €? How many
customers you need to get the invested money back?
Optimization of your website might be one of your best investments
ever, if is planned and implemented correctly.
About The Author
By
Zoran Makrevski
Zoran Makrevski is SEO Specialist, founder of
SEO.Goto.gr,
Search Engine Optimization Services company
serving small & medium businesses. |
