How do I submit my site to search engines?
Everything you need to know about submitting your newly built website to all of the major search engines, including links for submitting to Google, Yahoo, MSN and DMOZ (open directory project).
When it comes to submitting my websites to search engines, I only ever use 4:
(Ask.com is another good search engine, but their method of site submission involves creating a sitemap and I’m creating a post on sitemaps soon.)
All other search engines worth mentioning use either one of the above, or all of the above, for example AltaVista and AlltheWeb both use Yahoo to get their information from, and Dogpile, Metacrawler and WebCrawler are all meta-search engines which combine results from the 5 major search engines listed above.
I personally only ever search using Google because for me, it’s the best. Sure, other people may well prefer Yahoo, or MSN etc, but from a web designer’s point of view, I can’t see any professional building a website and NOT submitting it to Google and because of that I can’t see any point in using anything else.
After all, I’m using Google for AdSense, Adwords, Analytics, Blogger, Bookmarks, Checkout, Google Mail, iGoogle, Local Business Centre, Maps, Web History, Webmaster Tools and Website Optimiser – it’s just so much easier for me to do everything under one roof.
Anyway, on with the post…
Submitting a site to Google.
To submit a site to Google takes 5 easy steps:
- Click the following link: http://www.google.com/addurl/
- Fill out the full address of your website in box 1 – ‘URL‘
(making sure you include the ‘http://‘ before it) - Add a small description in box 2 below – ‘Comments‘
(I use my website’s tagline for this) - Read the CAPTCHA text and enter it into the box below
- Finally click ‘Add URL‘
That’s it. All done. Your site has been submitted to Google and they will take care of the rest. As with all search engines, you only ever need to submit the top level page from your site, i.e. Home page or Index page, the search engine will then crawl the rest of the pages with their robot or spider to create a full index of your site.
Submitting a site to MSN.
Submitting a site to MSN is very similar to Google:
- Click the following link: http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx
- Read the CAPTCHA text and enter it into the box below
- Fill out the full address of your website in the box below
(making sure you include the ‘http://‘ before it) - Finally click ‘Submit URL‘
Submitting a site to Yahoo.
Submitting a site to Yahoo is very similar to both Google ad MSN with the exception that you have to sign in with your Yahoo ID:
- Click the following link: http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx
- Click ‘Submit a Website or Webpage‘ which opens up the text field for you to enter the URL
- Fill out the full address of your website in the box below
(making sure you include the ‘http://‘ before it) - Click ‘Submit URL‘
- Sign in with your Yahoo ID to confirm
Where Google and MSN both use CAPTCHA to stop spam, Yahoo takes security one step further by taking you to another page where you have to sign in with your Yahoo ID. If you don’t have a Yahoo account, signing up for one is simple enough, you’ll just have one more email address to remember.
Submitting a site to dmoz (Open Directory Project [ODP]).
Dmoz is not a search engine, but submitting your site there is equally as important as Google, MSN and Yahoo.
Dmoz stands for ‘directory.mozilla.org’ which was the original domain name of the Open Directory Project (ODP). In short, it is a structured directory of millions of World Wide Web links which are submitted, checked and maintained by humans. The subject of dmoz/ODP really deserves it’s own post, which I will do later in the year, but for now all you need to know is how to submit a site to it:
- Click the following link: http://www.dmoz.org/
- Choose your category
- Click the correct top level category
- Click the correct sub-category
- Click the correct sub-sub-category* (explanation below)
- Click the correct letter for your websites name* (explanation below)
- Make sure your website is not already on the list
- Click ‘Suggest URL’ (link at top right of page)
- Read guidelines
- Fill out form:
- Enter URL (making sure you include the ‘http://‘ before it)
- Enter Title of site
- Enter site description
- Enter a valid email address
- Enter CAPTCHA text
- Click ‘Submit‘
It is very important that you are accurate with your choice of category for your website, any errors can mean a lengthy delay. With the thousands of sites waiting to be approved, editors can only work on their specific category, so by the time yours gets to the top of the pile, if it’s in the wrong category it will have to be passed on to another editor and that means right back to the bottom of the next editors pile so what should take weeks can end up taking months.
As an example, when I entered Worcestershire Web Design to dmoz, I chose the following category / sub-categories:
- Computers
- Internet
- Web Design and Development
- Designers
- Basic Service
- letter ‘W’ (for Worcestershire [web design])
It may seem a lengthy process compared to the search engines URL submit methods, and it is, but it is important and will be worth it in the long run. Search engines don’t give you PageRank, the dmoz Open Directory Project does.
Related information and links
Dmoz help page: http://www.dmoz.org/help/submit.html
I hope you found this information useful and I welcome your comments.
If you have any specific questions related to website development, please email me or post a comment.
Worcestershire Web Designer
Website Design Help | Worcestershire Web Designer | May 9, 2009
AlltheWeb, AltaVista, ask, CAPTCHA, dmoz, Dogpile, Google, link, meta, metacrawler, MSN, robots, search engine, spiders, submission, submit, WebCrawler, website, Yahoo
Company Website Design…
Neat info; so we want to track-back to this dont stop….
I’ve just spent a very frustrating half hour trying to submit my site (above) to DMOZ. There is no category covering pets, animals, petsitting, dog-walking, or anything similar in UK/Scotland/Stirling; when I try to submit it under that category alone I am told ‘very few sites will be accepted for this’ and that’s as far as I can get.
I’m not an idiot, nor am I incapable of reading and understanding English, so if you would like to offer any advice I would appreciate it if you don’t simply repeat the information you’ve already given me, with which I have no argument, by the way. What I’d like to know is if there’s any way to breach the DMOZ ivory tower and ask them how I’m supposed to submit my site in the right category when they apparently won’t let me.
Thank you for an otherwise extremely helpful tutorial.
another awesome tutorial. it was so nice to read and easy to follow.
awesome post
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Hey nice post …. Keep up the great work
Very nice information. Thanks for this.
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