TIPS and TRICKS
Top search engines
There are thousands of search engines out there, but only a small fraction of them are likely to send you more than a couple of visitors each month. That is why instead of running around and desperately trying to submit to as many search engines as possible, you should focus on the ones that can have a strong impact on the overall traffic of your site.
In this article, I'm planning to list the four top search engines. They are in a rough order of importance based on my estimate on how many referrals a high ranking in each of them produces.
Because our intention is to only list search engines that offer free submission, it was necessary to set some limitations:
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Directories have been excluded, because we've already covered the two most popular ones (ODP and Yahoo)
elsewhere on this site.
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The same goes for PPC (pay per click) and other non-free search engines. PPC advertising is a complicated subject, so I feel that it is
better to discuss it separately. Those interested can read "PPC search engine advertising", my article about the topic.
- There are several major search engines that do not have their own databases. For example, MSN draws all of its results from Looksmart and Inktomi. While it is a large search engine, it is impossible to submit to it directly, which is why MSN is not present in this list. The same goes for other "non-independent" search engines, such as AOL.
Before mentioning any names, let me remind you that time moves fast on the Internet. Just a few years ago, Infoseek was one of the top search engines, but now it is gone. On the other hand, back then no one had heard about Google, which is currently the undisputed champion. Things change fast, so if you want to stay current, visit this page every six months or so to check for updates.
The top dog - Google
After looking at my referral logs and reading discussion forums frequented by search engine optimization experts, it is clear to me that Google is the primary source of search engine traffic for most sites. This should not surprise anyone, because in addition to the fact that Google provides the secondary results at Yahoo, the engine itself has become the favorite of great many people due to the high quality of its results.
To make things even better, it is in my opinion relatively easy to get well-ranked in Google even under fairly competitive keywords. All these things together constitute a good reason why you should examine Google's ranking algorithm and ensure that your pages meet its requirements.
Submit to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html .
Runner up - FAST
While it's still relatively small when compared with Google, FAST shows promise of becoming a very serious contender. It provides search results for many large portals and sites, for example to Lycos. FAST also runs its own search service, AllTheWeb, which provides fairly accurate results and sports a non-cluttered interface.
Interestingly, FAST's algorithm seems to somewhat resemble that of Google, which explains why some searches turn up similar answers at both engines. However, there are differences, so a page that is in the top ten at Google may not do so well with FAST.
Submit to FAST at http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php .
Third place - Inktomi
Inktomi does not run a search engine, but does provide search services and software for other sites. Its largest clients are AOL and MSN, but many smaller search engines and portals use Inktomi's results as well.
Most of Inktomi's customers use it as a secondary results provider. This means that Ink's results are only shown when the primary provider, such as Looksmart in the case of MSN, doesn't come up with anything useful. Thus, Inktomi can provide only a limited amount of visibility to the sites listed in it, especially under keywords that are very popular. Those who are interested in getting traffic through Inktomi should therefore target keyphrases that are less common, but are used in searches every now and then.
Submit to Inktomi at http://www.goo.ne.jp/help/door/url.html .
Note: The above link takes you to Goo via Altavista's Babelfish, which translates the submit page from Japanese to English. The "Submit" button is on the left, the button on the right clears the forms.
My apologies for the clumsiness of this arrangement, but Goo is at the moment probably the best way to submit to Inktomi's database for free.
Fourth - Altavista
During its glory days in 1999 and early 2000, being able to obtain a few top ten positions at Altavista was every webmaster's dream. However, after that the engine has been constantly declining. According to recent Jupiter Media Metrix statistics, Altavista has now lost two thirds of the audience it had in the summer of 2000 when its popularity peaked.
At the moment, I would still advise that you submit all of your pages to Altavista. But while it still is able to send a visitor or two your way, you should only try optimizing your site for Altavista if you're sure that the changes won't cause your position to drop in the other top search engines.
Submit to AV at http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new .
Summing it all up
There's no denying it, right now Google is where most of the free search engine traffic is at. Make sure that all of your pages are present in all of the above engines, but concentrate on optimizing for Google.
Some of you might be surprised by the shortness of this list, as it only includes four search engines. It's true that the list is short, but that is because we've seen a lot of free search engines disappear during the recent times.
At the moment, there unfortunately aren't any more free search engines that are worth submitting to in addition to those listed above. However, it's possible that the list may grow longer in the future as new players appear on the scene.
