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Would you believe... we submit to 700,000 search engines?

by Heather Maloney

Submitting to 700,000 or more search engines is all well and good, but do you know anyone who uses any of those obscure search engines, if there are in fact that many in existence? Let us take you through some of the promises you may see, and where you may have reason to be skeptical.

1/ Incorrect Information
If the search engine optimisation provider ("SEO") makes
statements like "Submitting your web site consistently is the #1 way to get indexed by search engines" you know they are not talking about the most popular search engine to start with! (ref: Footer 1) Just regularly re-submitting your site is not enough to get you good rankings; the search engines are smarter than that.

2/ Use of Automated Submission Tools / Reports
If overused, these may be detrimental to your site's rank. The more sophisticated search engines recognise the URLs of tools that use programs (rather than people) to either continually submit URLs or request ranking information. Use of these tools is one way to get banned from being listed altogether. (ref: Footer 2)

3/ The SEO's / client's search engine rankings
A quick test to see whether all the claims and testimonials
stack up for a particular SEO is to do a search via a major
search engine, to see where the SEO appears for obvious search terms. Whilst clearly search engine optimisation is going to be a very popular phrase on the internet, the better SEOs should at least have their main URL appear in the first 5 pages of one of your searches. Oh... please don't go looking for my website in the search engines as I've not employed SEO professionals on my site... yet ;-). You should also look for testimonials from clients of the SEO, and test their search engine results for appropriate search terms.

4/ Partners?
If an SEO does not appear in the search engine results, as I've suggested in point 3/ then it seems a little odd when they also claim that they are partners with that search engine. Even worse is where the SEO uses practices specifically warned against by the search engines that they claim to have as partners (see point 6).

5/ Submitting to very large numbers of search engines
The important question here is, who do you know that actually uses the obscure search engines that make up those very large numbers? You are better off spending money on getting good rankings in the handful of search engines that have a patronage that is likely to make a difference to the number of visitors to your site. You may wish to also target specific search engines that focus on a sector that your website falls into eg. a locality search engine.

6/ Doorway Pages / Cloaking
A mention of the use of doorway pages or cloaking techniques
should ring warning bells. These techniques were invented
years ago, and worked successfully for a time, in improving
search engine rankings. However, the better search engines have been aware of these techniques for some time, and can detect when they are being employed. Using these techniques is very likely to get you banned from the most popular search engines. (ref: Footer 3)

For an example of what can go wrong when you use doorway pages and other so-called 'sneaky' techniques, read about BMW Germany being banned from Google here (published on 6th Feb, 2006):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4685750.stm

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Certainly, not all search engine optimisation is bad - a
professional approach utilising a reputable SEO that focuses on helping you achieve the best rankings without trying to trick anyone, is a useful addition to your website marketing arsenal. I recommend a well-rounded approach to website marketing, as described in my article entitled "Build it and they will come?".

Footnotes:
1. Refer to "Fiction: A website will be removed from Google's index if it's 'over-submitted'." on the Google Information page located here: http://www.google.com.au/webmasters/facts.html.
The key point made is: "your time is better spent improving the content and links of your site".
2. Refer to "Fiction: Automated 'rank checking' programs are a good way for webmasters to save time and measure their online presence." on this Google Information page:
http://www.google.com.au/webmasters/facts.html.
3. Refer to the 'Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations' section of the Webmaster Guidelines on the Google page:
http://www.google.com.au/webmasters/guidelines.html. The key points are: "Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines", and also "Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects".