SEO Do's and Don'ts: Submitting to Search Engines and Directories
Part 4 of our SEO Do’s and Don’ts series is inspired by a direct mail spam on SEO. They claimed they would submit your website to 2,000 new search engines every month! Every month! If you fall for these kind of outrageous statements you’re better off pulling a couple thousand dollars out of your pocket and setting it on fire – month after month.
At least that way you won’t have a negative impact on your website…
Sure there may be an 11th tier search engine for Beanie Babies, but is it going to help your online hardware store sell more hammers? The answer is no, so there is no need to submit to it.
Do: create a sitemap.xml file and upload it to Google’s webmaster tools.
Do: claim your site through Yahoo’s Site Explorer.
Do: pay for a Yahoo! Directory, Business.com, and Best of the Web listing.
Do: submit to industry related directories and search engines if available.
Don’t: pay anyone to submit your site to X,XXX search engines.
Don’t: submit your website by hand to any of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask)
Don’t: submit your website to DMOZ more than once.
Don’t: submit to link farms or sites that require you link back to them.
