Getting Your Web Site Listed

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Getting Your Web Site Listed

• Danny SullivanEditor, Search Engine
  Watchhttp//searchenginewatch.com/

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Sessions Goal

• Cover the best way to increase the percentage of
  your web site listed with crawler-based search
  engines
• Discuss importance of submitting to human-powered
  directories
• Not covering issues of improving ranking!

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Types of Search Services

• Search engines crawl the web and read your web
  pages
• Directories like Yahoo depend on human-provided
  information to categorize sites
• Most search services are a hybrid of both, but
  more dominant in one area

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How Search Engines Work

• Read pages they find on the web
• Store text in an index
• When you search, they look for pages with
  matching text
• Other factors involved in ranking those pages,
  such as link popularity

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The Major Search Engines

• Northern Light (big, but low traffic)
• FAST Search (big, but even less traffic)
• AltaVista (big and popular)
• Inktomi (HotBot, UK Max)
• Google (Netscape Search)
• Excite (WebCrawler)
• Go (Infoseek)
• Lycos (links at end)

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Submitting To Search Engines

• Search engines should find you naturally, but
  submitting helps speed the process and can
  increase your representation
• Look for Add URL link at bottom of home page
• Submit your home page and a few key section
  pages
• Turnaround from a few days to 2 months

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Deep Crawlers

• AltaVista, Inktomi, Northern Light will add the
  most, usually within a month
• Excite, Go (Infoseek) will gather a fair amount
  Lycos gathers little
• Index sizes are going up, but the web is
  outpacing themnor is size everything
• Here are more actions to help even the odds

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Deep Submit

• A deep submit is directly submitting pages from
  inside the web site can help improve the odds
  these will get listed.
• At Go, you can email hundreds of URLs. Consider
  doing this.
• At HotBot/Inktomi, you can submit up to 50 pages
  per day. Possibly worth doing.
• At AltaVista, you can submit up to 5 pages per
  day. Probably not worth the effort.
• Elsewhere, not worth doing a deep submit.

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Big Site? Split It Up

• Expect search engines to max out at around 500
  pages from any particular site
• Increase representation by subdividing large
  sites logically into subdomains
• Search engines will crawl each subsite to more
  depth
• Heres an example...

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Subdomains vs. Subdirectories
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I Was Framed

• Don't use them. Period.
• If you do use them, search engines will have
  difficulty crawling your site.

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Dynamic Roadblocks

• Dynamic delivery systems that use ? symbols in
  the URL string prevent search engines from
  getting to your pages
• http//www.nike.com/ObjectBuilder/ObjectBuilder.iw
  x?ProcessNameIndexPageSection_Id17200NewApplic
  ationt
• Eliminate the ? symbol, and your life will be
  rosy
• Look for workarounds, such as Apache rewrite or
  Cold Fusion alternatives
• Before you move to a dynamic delivery system,
  check out any potential problems.

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How Directories Work

• Editors find sites, describe them, put them in a
  category
• Site owners can also submit to be listed
• A short description represents the entire web
  site
• Usually has secondary results from a
  crawler-based search engine

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The Major Directories

• Yahoo
• The Open Directory
• (Netscape, Lycos, AOL Search, others)
• LookSmart
• UK Plus
• Snap

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Submitting To Directories

• Directories probably won't find you or may list
  you badly unless you submit
• Find the right category (more in a moment), then
  use Add URL link at top or bottom of page
• Write down who submitted (and email address),
  when submitted, which category submitted to and
  other details
• Youll need this info for the inevitable
  resubmission attempt it will save you time.

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Submitting To Directories

• Take your time and submit to these right
• Write 3 descriptions 15, 20 and 25 words long,
  which incorporate your key terms
• Search for the most important term you want to be
  found for and submit to first category that's
  listed which seems appropriate for your site
• Be sure to note the contact name and email
  address you provided on the submit form
• If you don't get in, keep trying

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Subdomain Advantage

• Directories tend not to list subsections of a web
  site.
• In contrast, they do tend to see subdomains as
  independent web sites deserving their own
  listings
• So, another reason to go with subdomains over
  subdirectories

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Other Tips / Misc

• Under represented? Get in touch!
• Need Search Engine Links? Seehttp//searchengine
  watch.com/links/