WHAT MOST WEB PROMOTION
COMPANIES DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW
Don't be fooled by all the companies
out on the web that offer to take your money and submit your
site to a so called large number of search engines and directories
("Submit your site to 5,000 search engines for only
$9.99").
There are maybe 200 search engines and directories currently in operation.
With very small ones popping up or dying off all the time. Many of these only
accept and list special interest sites or sites from certain geographic locations
so submitting most sites to all of them is unnecessary and amounts to spamming
the index or directory.
Of the 200 total there are about 100
substantial search engine directories and directories that
are worthwhile to submit to. Of these, the top 10 sites (Yahoo,
Lycos, etc.) will most likely generate 90% of your search engine
traffic.
So where do these companies get these
inflated numbers of sites to submit to?
A great deal of the fluff comes from Free For All (FFA) link sites.
So why not submit to the FFA's?
We believe it is a waste of time and that it is unlikely you will receive any
noticeable traffic. As a test we recently submitted to over 1000 FFAs once
a day for a week, and even though we were listed immediately we didn't get
a single hit generated from them!!!
The vast majority of Free Fall All link
sites accept about 100 links per very general category (Business,
Computers, etc.). When a new site is submitted to a category
it starts in the number 1 position and moves down 1 position
each time a new site is added. When a site reaches position
101 and is taken off the list. Depending on your category and
submissions it can take just a matter or hours until your site
is completely out of the list. If you want back on the list
you need to resubmit. Even worse, FFA's, often use your email
to try to induce you to buy their product or service and also
sell your email address to other companies so they can do the
same. Depending on how many and which ones you submit to hundreds
if not thousands of spam emails will be sent to your mail box!!
Don't pay for this to happen to you!
The vast majority of the sights offering to submit your site for X dollars
to however many sites don't care whether search engines will even be able
to read your site, they just take the url and email address you give them
and use an automated process to submit your site to whatever sites they happen
to have in their list. Often the complete process is automated and you actually
did the submit yourself when you paid and filled out their form!!!
Most submission companies don't care
if the major search engines, the ones that will actually generate
any significant traffic for you, can even read your site effectively
or at all. Since many search engines and directories take weeks
to list sites after they have been accepted and cataloged,
it only makes sense to make sure your site is search engine
optimized before you submit the first time.
Even worse more often than not submission
companies fail to submit to the directories that require special
information and human interaction, like Yahoo, Infoseek, etc.
because their processes are automated. Many of the top traffic
generators on the net are the directories, it is critical to
get listed with them if possible.
It can take months to get listed with
Yahoo and some of the other larger directories even if your
site is perfect and was submitted properly. It is critical
that these submissions are done right the first time by someone
who understands how the directories work and what they are
looking for. Do you really want a computer program submitting
your site to the largest traffic generator on the net?
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