There are two ways to get your site listed on the search engines. Either wait until a search engine finds you by following a link from another site (this can take a long time!) or manually add your site to the search engine via the "Submit URL" option on their homepage.
It's important if you are going to manually submit that you understand the process and stick to some simple guidelines.
Rule #1 - Focus on the task
Forget about submission to 300,000 search engines or the other offers which you will see. Over 90% of traffic comes from the major search engines so concentrate all your efforts on achieving high ranks in these.
Rule #2 - Don't spam
Don't over-submit your site to any one search engines. The basic rule is that you should not submit your URL more than once per week, but you have to be even more careful with search engines such as DirectHit. Read the submission instructions for each search engine carefully before you make a submission.
Rule #3 - Don't submit every page
A search engine will "crawl" your site following the links from the first page you submit to them and in this way they will seek out the other pages on your site. Save yourself some time and just submit the most crucial pages and let the search engine do the rest.
Rule #4 - Be careful with your keywords
If you are asked to submit keywords, only submit those that relate to actual content on your site. If you are a florist then you shouldn't try to get listed using e.g. "valentines day" as keywords unless you have content on your site that actually contains those terms. Search engines only use keywords as guidelines and will only provide a good listing if they find supporting content on your site.
Also, be careful not to repeat a single keyword more than about six times. Search engines may penalise you for excessive keyword repetition.
Once you've added your site, sit back and wait. Some search engines add your site very rapidly (e.g. Infoseek). Others though can take much longer, up to two months in some cases.
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