Gmail Envelopes Promo Videos

Ten seconds won’t be enough time to recreate Jules and Vincent discussing the Royale with Cheese while passing the Gmail M-velope, but maybe the M-velope was in the briefcase the whole time anyway.

Just for fun, Google’s Gmail bloggers want to gather video submissions promoting the service:

A few of us on the Gmail team came up with an idea to stitch together a bunch of video clips that all share one element: someone hands the Gmail M-velope in from the left of the screen, and hands it off to the right. Put them all together, and they form one long chain of hand-offs. We thought it would be fun to let everyone in on the action.

Google will take video submissions up to August 13th, string together the best ones, and set them to music. People can view Google’s opening effort and pick up from there.

As I predicted the Jet vs Bird submission did indeed go “popular”, with the attendant flood of fraffic from Digg, but then Mr Knuttz made some changes (I’m not sure exactly what), the consequence of which is that not one subsequent submission on Digg has been promoted not even one. That’s what you call coming to a grinding halt!

The Alexa pageviews graph tells the story of the last few days graphically:

In the only communication that appears to have come directly from Mr Knuttz a couple of days after my initial post, he spends most of the post addressing concerns about image copyright, something I never addressed at all, so I assume he may be feeling the heat on various fronts.

What is definitely clear is that knuttz.net is now no longer quite the Made For Digg site it was just 5 days ago. While certain posts (that correspond to matching Digg submits) do carry Digg buttons, the funnel mechanism is gone. Futher, Digg submissions just don’t seem to be getting off the ground any more.

I don’t have the time or resources to analyze this any further, but you have to say that it is rather intriguing. Observers and commentators like me don’t have power to effect such dramatic change, and I am under no illusions that I was the cause of this traffic drop on Knuttz. My suspicion is that Mr Knuttz may have received a “clearly worded” email from Mr Rose to back off. Or he drew his own conclusions from the fact that this Digg submission, at over 90 votes, still hasn’t been promoted Now why would that be?!

Hmmm are Digg and Knuttz no longer friends?

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Alister Cameron is an accomplished web designer and internet marketing
consultant who turns established subject-matter experts into expert
bloggers. Alister’s clients are using blogging and social media to leverage
their offline expertise in the online world, and engage Alister to build
their blogging platform or social network; to train them in writing and
online marketing strategy; and to help them stay up with the latest
developments in blogging and online marketing. Alister’s blog is a rich
tapestry of advice, anecdotes and reflections from the frontline of
professional blogging, social media and search engine marketing, and never
without generous dollops of humor and wit.

The creator of the program, Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive head Jef Burkett, admits, though, the space allotted on the front page is “the ghetto position,” but that may be a temporary neighborhood.

“If the blogosphere embraces this and we see a lot of interest from quality blogs we will grow the size of the index and give it better positioning on the page,” writes Burkett.

Burkett says the program has the potential of 8 million visitors seeing the links daily, giving a boost to previously unnoticed but talented bloggers, and help both WaPo and the bloggers generate advertising revenue.

At the start of the program, WaPo is asking for content related to business, health, automotive, travel, and technology. But topics could expand depending on submissions and the success of the program.

” This is a fantastic way for a newspaper to build relationships with bloggers,” writes Steve Rubel. “Everybody wins.”

Steve suggests Burkett tweak the program so that blogger content is aggregated on the first page, and that relevant articles produce contextual links to blogger entries.

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The Java technology mascot is called Duke. It’s amazing the things you can learn. I always thought it was called the Java thingee. And Duke isn’t just a mascot, it’s an award for crafting Java applications and services in an innovative fashion.

Sun will accept submissions for the award online, with a deadline of March 15 for this year’s awards. Also, one award winner will come from the Java applications already featured on the Java website. Voting for one of five candidates from that site can be done online at Java.com until March 31.

Winners will be notified on April 7th. They will receive recognition and a statuette of Duke at the next JavaOne conference in San Francisco. This year’s conference will run May 16 – 19 at the Moscone Center.

Sun highlighted some of the accepted sessions for the forthcoming 2006 JavaOne conference. One of those will be of interest to the Web 2.0 crowd. Google’s Bruce Johnson will present “Java-based Technology Techniques for Developing AJAX Applications.”

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

You have probably read this statement many times and it’s true at least for the majority of websites.

So how about web directories? Is submitting your site to them a waste of time?

Even if directories usually don’t deliver a lot of traffic they contribute inbound links to your site increasing its link popularity a very important factor used by search engines to rank websites.

When someone queries a search engine using a keyword relevant to your site, higher is your site link popularity higher are its chances to come up near the top of the results.

Submitting your site to web directories will help you increase its visibility and attract more traffic from search engines.

However you need an overall strategy to successfully manage your directory submissions or you will only lose your time and energies.

Is your site ready?

You should never forget that directories don’t exist to give away free links. Their purpose is to provide their visitors with good quality sites.

If you want some chances to get listed you need a well designed web site containing useful and original content or offering useful services.

Your site must also be complete without broken links or links to ‘under construction’ pages.

Other things that can cause a rejection of your submission are: too many ads (especially pop-ups and pop-unders), automatic redirections to another domain, having the same exact content of other sites (example: the ‘self replicated’ sites some companies provide to their affiliates).

Preparing your listing details

Open your favorite text editor and write down the following informations:

1) your web site URL.

2) your website Title. Some directories accept only the official site name as title, others allow some descriptive keywords, but in general stuffing a lot of keywords in your title is not acceptable. Write 2-3 different titles in compliance with these different rules.

3) your website description. Write what your site is about in a couple of sentences. Avoid superlatives, exclamation marks, excessive hype and generally everything that makes your description sound like an ad.

Description should be written in third person. Avoid expressions like ‘we offer’, ‘we are …’.

4) a set of search keywords related to your site. Separate the keywords with commas, then write down the same set of keywords this time separated by spaces. Some directories require the first format, others the second one.

5) your full name and email address.

Once you have done save the document. By copying and pasting these informations into the submissions forms you will save time and avoid errors.

Or you can utilize Clipboard Magic http://www.cybermatrix.com/clipmag.html

This free software allows you to save multiple rows of data and load them into the Windows Clipboard simply with a click of the mouse. It’s really useful when you need to fill in many online forms with the same informations.

Finding web directories

The next step is finding directories where you can submit your site.

You can use top directories to find minor and specialized directories

DMOZ: http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/

Yahoo: http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/Searching_the_Web/Search_Engines_and_Directories/

Spend some time to determine how each directory is organized and find the most appropriate category for your site.

Submitting to the wrong category usually causes a rejection of your submission.

Compile a list of all directories where you have submitted your site indicating the date of your submission.

Verifying the results

Not all directories send you an email when your site is listed.

You should periodically visit your list of directories and make a search for your site title or url. Flag all directories where you find your site.

If your site has not been listed after about 2 months from the date of your first submission you can try to submit it again. My advice is to not resubmit more frequently.

You can also contact the directory owner and ask about the status of your submission, but if you don’t receive a reply, don’t insist. There may be many reasons why a directory doesn’t list your site, simply accept the fact that not all submissions are successful.

Submitting your site to web directories is an essential part of your website promotion strategy. It’s a time consuming task, but with the right planning you will be able to manage it successfully.

Mike Paolieri is webmaster and co-owner of WebmasterGate, a
directory of articles, tools and resources of interest to
webmasters and web developers.

http://www.webmastergate.com/

In fact, DMOZ is usally considered the most important of all internet directories.

I recommend submitting your blog to DMOZ for both the incoming link value and for potential visitor traffic.

The Open Directory Project has become much more blog friendly in the past year. There is even a special category for blogs.

I provide information on successful submission to the Open Directory Project in several different posts. They range from basic DMOZ directory submission to advanced DMOZ directory submission

That said, there are allegedly some internal problems at DMOZ, that if they are even partially accurate, could spell some problems for the directory in the near future.

A new blog called Corrupt DMOZ Editor (via Search Engine Guide) alleges bribery of editors to gain entry into the directory, to charges of editors sabotaging competitors sites entry and existinglistings, and possible rampant editor corruption.

Other blogs and websites continue in the same vein.

A DMOZ Editor Speaks is a small website where a former editor makes similar claims. In a blatant take off from the DMOZ site design, the parody site called NMOZ sends all links back to Corrupt DMOZ Editor.

I am not sure if the sites are related in any way.

Another blog that picks up similar themes is My DMOZ Fan Page where even more editor corruption is alleged.

There is also a post presenting the author’s opinion of why it takes so long for a site to be listed in DMOZ.

If any of these allegations are even remotely true, there might indeed be some problems with some of the volunteer editors at the Open Directory Project.

Note that all editors at DMOZ are unpaid volunteers.

While there might be a few bad apples, the vast majority of editors are hard working and contientious at their job. They work hard to create the best possible directory, including as many deserving sites as possible.

Regardless of the alleged improprieties, I still recommend submitting your blog or website to DMOZ.

Don’t worry about charges of corruption, as it’s highly doubtful they will affect your site submission in any way.

I recently submitted a client’s site to the Open Directory Project, and it was accepted into the selected category, in about four weeks time. In fact, the editors used my entered site description word for word, without any changes at all.

Entry into DMOZ is an important step toward high search engine rankings and more visitor traffic to your blog or traditional website.

It’s definitely worth the time and effort of submission.

.

Link: DMOZ integrity

Reader Comments…

Wayne Hurlbert provides insigtful information about marketing, promotions, search engine optimization and public relations for websites and business blogs on the popular Blog Business World.

Check out Blog Business World for yourself.

The links add SEO power in the search engines and provide many fresh new visitors to enjoy your blog postings.

For bloggers experiencing problems getting listed in the search engines like Google, Yahoo Search, and MSN Search, blog directories are very helpful. The search engine spider (computer robot that searches the internet looking for web pages) can find your blog for indexing via a blog directory link.

Two brand new free blog directories have just appeared and are actively seeking blog submissions.

One is called BlogSweet

The other is called FindingBlog

I submitted my blogs to them, and am awaiting approval for inclusion.

You should submit your blogs as well.

After all, they are free.

.

Link: Blog directories

Reader Comments…

Wayne Hurlbert provides insigtful information about marketing, promotions, search engine optimization and public relations for websites and business blogs on the popular Blog Business World.

Check out Blog Business World for yourself.

The Internet now features a large number of both general purpose and specialized directories. The specialized directories focus on a specific topic or region.

Unfortunately, submitting your web site to the plethora of available directories requires a significant investment of time and effort. The key to achieving a positive ROI (Return On Investment) from directory submissions is to focus on those directories which will provide you with high-quality inbound links.

It is important to note that many web directories have issues which prevent them from providing useful links. Taking the time understand these issues and submit only to the directories which will provide value will provide significant time savings in promoting your site.

A Taxonomy of Web Directory Issues

Web Directories Which Are No Longer Managed

A survey of 79 general-purpose web directories revealed that 62% of those web directories do not appear to be processing submissions.

In many cases, this is because the operators of the web directory launched their site with great enthusiasm, became overwhelmed by the amount of effort required to maintain a web directory, and stopped maintaining their directory. These operators leave their directories online to take advantage of the residual advertising revenue, but no longer invest the time required to process directory submissions.

Web Directories which Block Search Engine Robots

Some SEO’s believe that they can preserve Google PageRank by not giving outbound links from their web sites.

Web directories which operate in this manner will sometimes block Googlebot and other search engine robots from their directory pages using robots.txt or meta tags.

Before submitting to a web directory, check the PageRank of the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear. If that page has a PageRank of zero, it could mean that the site operator is blocking Googlebot.

However, this same symptom can also mean that the site or the page is new, and has not been assigned Google PageRank yet. To research this further, examine the sites robots.txt file and the source code to the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear.

Web Directories which use Scripted Links

Many web directories use scripted links to avoid leaking PageRank. Scripted links use PHP or JavaScript links to redirect the user to the target page. Although these links work correctly for most site visitors, they do not work for most search engine robots.

To determine if scripted links are in use, place your mouse cursor over an outbound link on the directory page upon which you expect to appear. Examine the link text which appears in the lower left corner of your browser.

A JavaScript link will look something like this:

javascript:var handle=window.open('http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com')

A proper HTML link will look something like this:

http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com

Free Directory Scammers

Several web directories pretend to accept free submissions, but in reality these free submissions are never processed.

These directories claim to accept free submissions as part of a bait-and-switch tactic to upsell webmasters into paid submissions.

Often these web directories will claim to provide free service for web sites which meet certain defined criteria. It just happens that no web site ever manages to meet those criteria!

Web Directories which Require Reciprocal Links

Some web directories require you to link back to them in order to be listed. This helps build the PageRank of the directory, which benefits all web sites in the directory.

Some people view these sites as link-farms.

If your web site is unable to provide a link back to these directories, do not invest your time submitting your web site to these directories.

Reciprocal linking is not an appropriate strategy for all web sites.

Paid Directories

Some web directories charge for submissions. These web directories charge either a subscription fee, a one-time fee, or a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) fee.

Some of these web directories charge exorbitant fees — and a few of these web directories charge this fee whether your site is accepted or not!

Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that paid directories do not provide a positive ROI.

Better Directories

A few web directories stand out by offering good user interfaces, speedy inclusion, and plain HTML links which pass PageRank:

Summary

Submitting your web sites to web directories is an excellent method of building quality inbound links.

Submitting your web site to only the best web directories can net you 90% of the results with 20% of the effort.

Will Spencer is the webmaster of The Internet Search Engines FAQ.

http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com

This is arguably on of the most important aspect of the SEO process and can mean the difference between first page rankings and 100th. It has to be done right and it has to be done on an ongoing basis.

Over this series we will cover the ten key aspects to a solid search engine positioning campaign.

The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are:

1. Keyword Selection

2. Content Creation

3. Site Structure

4. Optimization

5. Internal Linking

6. Human Testing

7. Submissions

8. Link Building

9. Monitoring

10. The Extras

Step Eight – Link Building

Link building: it’s pretty much understood that this is a critical component when you’re trying to attain top search engine positioning however the confusion enters when it’s time to decide exactly what you should do.

>From talk about reciprocal link building one might come to believe that this is the golden egg of SEO. While reciprocal link building can definitely be beneficial to your rankings it is far from the only or even the best method. In this article we will cover the following link-building tactics:

Reciprocal link building

Directory listings

Non-reciprocal link building tactics

Tools to maximize your efforts

And so, without further ado

Reciprocal Link Building

Reciprocal link building is the trading of links between two websites. Essentially it an “I’ll post yours if you’ll post mine” sort of arrangement. There are many sites out there that will essentially link to any-and-all sites willing to link to them. This is not a good practice.

While purely speculation at this point, there is significant debate in the SEO community regarding how search engines might be altering their algorithms to take into account a Webmaster or SEO’s ability to manipulate their rankings with reciprocal links. Whether or not these speculations are true currently, they are most certainly being integrated if they have not be already.

Essentially, the search engines need to protect themselves and provide relevant results to their users. While inbound links as part of search engine algorithms is certainly here to stay, the way these links are calculated changes constantly and in reaction to the current environment and also in prediction of future developments, the way we build them too must evolve.

There are some basic rules to follow when exchanging links:

Relevancy is more important than PageRank

Check and make sure the recips aren’t being blocked

Link pages with more than 50 links aren’t worth exchanging with

Prepare for the future

Relevancy

Many Webmasters focus only on the PageRank of a website when deciding whether to exchange links with it. Without a doubt PageRank is important however more important is whether or not that website’s content is related to yours. There are two reasons for this:

1. The algorithms are changing to take into consideration the relevancy of links. A link from a relevant PageRank 3 page will be considered more valuable than a PageRank 5 link from a totally unrelated site. Some predict that unrelated links will soon be given little or no weight whatsoever.

2. Believe it or not, Google is not the only search engine. PageRank is Google’s ranking of the value of a site. What Google gives a 3 out of 10 Yahoo may give more weight to.

Basically, after a series of tests we have determined that links to related sites will never hinder your rankings. With this in mind feel free to link to any site you think your visitors would naturally be interested in if they are at your site.

Blocked Recips

Unethical website owners (or their SEOs) will sometimes block the links backs from search engine spiders. Be this in an effort to attain what appear to be one-way links as opposed to reciprocal or simple to make their website appear to have fewer outbound links this is not ethical and it certainly won’t help you.

When you’re looking at a potential link exchange page check the source code for the robots tag. If it’s set to “noindex,nofollow” then the page is being blocked and the link won’t help at all.

Some wiser webmasters will user the robots.txt file to block search engine spiders. If you look for robots.txt at the root of the domain (i.e. at http://www.domainin question.com/robots.txt) you will see the files/folders that are being blocked. Look for the links pages and/or the directory these pages or in, in this list. If you find it, then don’t exchange links with them.

A new one I’ve recently found along this tangent is to draw the links from a script and to block the script and database folders from the search engines. The files won’t show up in the excluded list but the links won’t be counted. To detect this the easiest thing to do is to view the cache of the page. If the page is cached but none of the links appear and the script directory is listed in the robots.txt file then this tactic is being used. Again, don’t bother exchanging links.

If you find Webmasters employing any of these tactics they are unethical. Unethical Webmasters shouldn’t be rewarded with high PageRanks or good results. If you have the time and inclination you may want to email those websites listed on the page (heck, they may be good recip link partners anyways) and let them know what’s going on. You’ll be doing them a favor and they’ll probably be happy to exchange links with you as well.

Link Pages With More than 50 Links

Webmasters who are trying to actually do their link partners a favor will limit their links pages to 50 links (the lower the better). The reason for this is that every page gets one vote. A link to another website counts as a vote for that site. This is why it can help improve rankings. As each page only gets one vote a link from a page with 10 links counts at 0.1 of a vote, whereas a link from a page with 100 links counts as 0.01 of a vote. Anything past about 100 links is not counted at all.

Additionally, this higher up on a page your link appears the more weight it is given. If the page lists sites alphabetically try to insure that your title begins with a number or a letter early in the alphabet (which work well for companies like “Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning”).

Prepare For The Future

Just because a rule applies today does not mean that it will tomorrow. This is true in on-site SEO as well as link building. If generic recip links work today consider whether you believe it’s in the best interest of your targeted engine to keep it this way. As the answer will undoubtedly be “no” it’s in your best interest to insure that you take the extra time to build links that will still be valuable months and even a year from now to save yourself a drop in the rankings and additional work later.

Directory Listings

Having your website listed in quality directories is perhaps one of the most valuable things you can do for it in regards to inbound links. Directories link DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org/) and Yahoo (http://dir.yahoo.com/) hold significant weight. Google draws it’s directory results from DMOZ and Yahoo draws it’s directory results from, well, Yahoo. These links are given a lot of weight.

Make sure that you submit your website to both of these directories and if they’re not listed a couple months down the road, try again (and you may want to try a slightly different category if a relevant one exists as you may have hit one of the many overworked editors who’s getting behind).

Aside from these two there are literally thousand of other directories our there. Look for others and submit your site. Some may charge a fee. If this is the case take a look at the page your site would be listed on, take a look at the PageRank, the number of outbound links on the page and determine whether it’s worth the price. I’ve seen directories charging $10 for a permanent PageRank 5 link on a page with 3 other outbound links (though this number is certain to grow over time). Well worth the $10 investment.

You can find may great directories using search engines and, of course, the major directories. For example, were I looking for topical directories a great place to start would be http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Directories/ in the Google directory.

Non-Reciprocal Link Building Tactics

There are a number of other tactics for building non-reciprocal links. Here we will outline three of the most popular:

1. Articles

2. Press Releases

3. Paid Links

Articles

Writing articles is a great way of getting inbound links and generating quality traffic. Articles give you the opportunity to control the content on the linking page meaning that you can guarantee that it is totally relevant, it’s a one-way link, and it’s a link that you’ll actually get traffic from.

Let’s assume that you run a small computer shop. Why not write an article about how to troubleshoot a common Windows problem (no no, it’s true Windows can be a bit buggy every now and then). The next step is to simple find places to submit your article to and do just that. From experience I would highly recommend keeping a list in your favorites of the sites you submit to. If you decide to publish another article you probably don’t want to have to find them all from scratch again.

If you were looking for places to submit to you would run searches on the major search engines for “my topic articles” (in this case a search for “windows errors articles” and “computer troubleshooting articles” would be great places to start). If you find a lot of results only post their own articles you may want to add the word “submit” to the string.

Press Releases

Press releases are another great way to attain one-way inbound links. If you have news that you feel worth telling, submit a press release about it. While you’ll probably want to manually submit your site to the key online publishers, services such as PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com/) exist to submit your press release to a large audience at a very reasonable price.

Like articles, if the news is good you’re likely to get quality traffic from a press realease and on top of that, you are likely to get some good, related links to your website.

Paid Links

Paid links are links from other websites purchased solely for the value of the link rather than for direct clicks. Paid links have become so popular that auction sites have sprouted up for just this purpose and they can even be bought on eBay now.

There is no particular problem with paid links per-se however I would recommend applying the same criteria that you would to reciprocal links. If you are going to purchase links, only purchase them from related sites and try to make sure the link is not buried down at the bottom of the page.

Run-of-site links (links that appear on every page) are not significantly more valuable than single links on the homepage other than for the traffic. If you’ve purchased a link in a good location and on a good site you’re likely to get some good traffic from it. In fact, this is the general rule I go into any paid link arrangement with – purchase the link for the traffic. If the link increases my PageRank it’s a great bonus but if I’ve bought the link for the traffic and I’m getting it, then the link becomes secondary.

Link Building Tools

Because link building has become so important to improve search engine positioning a number of great tools have been developed to help in the process. While I couldn’t possible list them all here there have been two developments by a company named TopNet Solutions than have truly impressed me and which are the only tools that I use in every link building campaign.

PR Prowler

PR Prowler from TopNet Solutions searches the web based on your specific criteria providing results with a minimum PageRank that you determine. A very handy tool for your link-building efforts.

Total Optimizer Pro

When we first purchased PR Prowler we thought we’ve found the ultimate link building tool. That was, until we found Total Optimizer Pro. Made by the same folks who put out PR Prowler this tool rips apart and tells you everything there is to know about your competitor’s backlinks, the anchor text used to link to them, the PageRank distribution of their incoming links and much more.

If you have any questions about these tools or how they are used feel free to contact me (dave@beanstalk-inc.com). I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Next Week

Next week in part nine of our “Ten Steps To an Optimized Website” series we will be covering the importance of monitoring. This isn’t simply checking the rankings of your primary phrase every now and then but a scheduled check of all the key components on your optimization and search engine positioning efforts.

Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc. One of the few SEO firms to offer guaranteed optimization services. Visit their site for a free SEO & web design review and their blog to keep updated on the latest going on in the search engine world.

With services offering to help you get more traffic and higher search engine positioning by submitting your website to “18 Bazillion Search Engines For Just $19.95 Per Month!” and other such claims, there has grown much confusion around website submissions. In this article we will clear up many of the misconceptions around submitting your website and may even save you “Just $19.95 Per Month!” in the process.

Over this series we will cover the ten key aspects to a solid search engine positioning campaign.

The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are:

1. Keyword Selection
2. Content Creation
3. Site Structure
4. Optimization
5. Internal Linking
6. Human Testing
7. Submissions
8. Link Building
9. Monitoring
10. The Extras

Step Seven – Website Submissions

While there are definitely more critical areas of the website optimization process there is perhaps no area subject to as much misinformation and to such a vast audience. Here are some common misconceptions that are often believed about search engine submissions:

1. You need to submit your website often to keep it indexed by the search engines

2. You need to submit your website to thousands and thousands of search engines to get decent traffic

3. Submitting your website often will keep you at the top of the search engine rankings

These beliefs are all incorrect and those who can make a quick buck selling this disservice perpetrate them. If you have not recently received an email offering to “Submit Your Website To More Search Engines Than There Are Websites On The Internet For Just $19.95 Per Month!” then I can pretty much guarantee that you will in the not-too-distant future if your email can be found somewhere on your website.

An irony of this can be found in Google’s webmaster area where they note:

Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

“Dear google.com,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

Good advice as I’m sure Google has their website submissions taken care of. Just because you receive such an email, doesn’t mean that you’re missing out on anything. Let’s first look at a breakdown of which engines are responsible for which traffic.

According to research the major search engines are responsible for the following percentages of traffic as of June 2004:

Google – 41.6%

Yahoo – 31.5%

MSN – 27.4% (MSN draws their results from Yahoo!/Overture)

AOL – 13.6% (AOL draws their results from Google)

Ask Jeeves – 7.0%

Lycos – 3.7%

Netscape – 3.0% (Netscape draws their results from Google)

AltaVista – 2.7% (AltaVista draws the Yahoo!/Overture)

Source: Neilson/Netratings

Note: These numbers total over 100% as people may use multiple search engines if they don’t find the information they are looking for at the first one they try.

So what does this tell us? This tells us that the very vast majority of search engine traffic does not come from many thousands of search engines but rather, relatively few. This would lead to the obvious questions, “Is it worth paying to be submitted to thousands of search engines?” The real answer, “No.”

Then How Do I Submit My Own Website?

Automated search engine submission systems simply access the existing and readily accessible “Add URL” pages of the search engines and automatically submit your site. You can do this yourself simply by visiting the search engines and submitting through these same pages.

To simplify this process you can visit the “search engines” page on the Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning website (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/info/search-engines-major.htm) where we link directly to the submissions pages of the major engines.

But What About The Other Engines? Surely They Provide Some Traffic?

Quite honestly, they may. You may get a visitor or two. Is it worth $19.95/mth or some such amount? No. You can get a better dollar/visitor ratio on any of the many PPC engines out there.

An additional point to note is that you may want to actually visit some of the lists of engines on the sites offering these services to you. You will discover a couple of important facts:

- Many of these so-called “search engines” are not engines at all but rather FFA (Free-For-All) pages and classified ads sites. They will not help your rankings, you will not see traffic from them and your listing will probably last about as long as spam in your Inbox.

- Many of the actual search engines and directories are topical. What this means is that they are focused on a single area and unless your site coincidentally is about space exploration, topographical mapping, etc. you won’t get listed. Submitting should not be confused with “guaranteed listing”. Submitting your site to thousands of engines is not the same as getting your website indexed on thousands of engines.

The Submission Myth

The truth of that matter is, submitting your website at all can realistically be considered a waste of time. Aside from a few key general directories (DMOZ, Yahoo, etc.) and a number of SEO directories, we did not submit the website www.beanstalk-inc.com to any of the major search engines. It’s true, not a single submission.

Are we indexed? Yes we are.

How did we get indexed without submitting our site? If you take the time that you would be spending submitting your site and spend it instead finding quality inbound links (which we will write about next week) your site will be indexed and much quicker than you think.

You’ve probably heard the term “search engine spider”. Search engines crawl websites. This means that they visit a page, follow all the links on that page and so on. If you have a link on a website that is already known to the search engines it is only a matter of time before your website will be found by default. If fact, when the Beanstalk site went live and the first link was established to it, it did not take the weeks that are estimated through the use of the submissions pages for our site to be found. The homepage of beanstalk-inc.com was index by Google three days after the site went live and the other major engines followed within a week or so.

Final Notes

If there are any points that I hope you take away from this article they are the following:

1. Automated search engine submissions services are not worth the money they charge.

2. You do not need to be submitted to thousands of “search engines”. The vast majority of traffic comes from the top few.

3. You will want to consider whether it is even worth the time to submit to search engines or whether that time could be better spent building quality, relevant links to your site and submitting your site to the major and topical directories.

An additional failing to the automated submissions systems not covered above is their inability to take into consideration the exact characteristics of your website for their directory submissions. When you’re submitting your website to directories you will have to choose the exact category your site falls into. Most directories have slightly different category hierarchies and the more exact you are in your submission, the higher the chance you will be listed. Automated systems can never be as exact across multiple directories as a human can.

Submitting your website, even correctly, will not guarantee you top rankings however it will leave you with money in your pocket to spend on other promotional endeavors that may actually produce a solid ROI. And THAT’S what it’s all about.

The rankings? You’ll have to read the other nine steps of the series to find out how to attain those.

In part eight of this search engine positioning series we will cover the importance of link building, how to attain high quality, relevant links to your website, and the tools to reduce the time it take to do so significantly. With the importance of inbound links to your overall rankings you won’t want to miss this very important step in the website optimization process.

Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning, Inc. One of the few SEO firms to offer guaranteed optimization services. Visit their site for a free SEO & web design review and their blog to keep updated on the latest going on in the search engine world.