Intro To Search Engine Submission

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Part 1 of Essentials Of Search Engine Submission By Danny Sullivan, Editor
July 5, 2004

How can I get my site listed with search engines? It sounds like a pretty simple question, but sadly, search engine submission can be a complicated subject.

Have no fear. This guide will take you through the essential and relatively easy steps you can take to get listed with search engines.

Before we begin, it's important to make a distinction between search engine submission and search engine optimization. These terms, along with others, are sometimes used synonymously to discuss different efforts to promote sites on search engines. However, within this section of Search Engine Watch, they will be used to refer to some very specific activities.

Search Engine Submission: Getting Listed
"Search engine submission" refers to the act of getting your web site listed with search engines. Another term for this is search engine registration.

Getting listed does not mean that you will necessarily rank well for particular terms, however. It simply means that the search engine knows your pages exist.

Think of it like a lottery. Search engine submission is akin to you purchasing a lottery ticket. Having a ticket doesn't mean that you will win, but you must have a ticket to have any chance at all.

Search Engine Optimization: Improving The Odds
"Search engine optimization" refers to the act of altering your site so that it may rank well for particular terms, especially with crawler-based search engines (what these are will be explained later in this guide).

Returning to the lottery model, let's assume there was a way to increase the odds of winning by picking your lottery numbers carefully. Search engine optimization is akin to this. It's making sure that the numbers you select are more likely to win than purchasing a set of numbers at random.

Search Engine Placement & Positioning: Ranking Well
Terms such as "search engine placement," "search engine positioning" and "search engine ranking" refer to a site actually doing well for particular terms or for a range of terms at search engines. This is the ultimate goal for many people -- to get that "top ten" ranking for a particular keyword or search terms.

Search Engine Marketing & Promotion: The Overall Process
Terms such as "search engine marketing" or "search engine promotion" refer to the overall process of marketing a site on search engines. This includes submission, optimization, managing paid listings and more.

These terms also highlight the fact that doing well with search engines is not just about submitting right, optimizing well or getting a good rank for a particular term. It's about the overall job of improving how your site interacts with search engines, so that the audience you seek can find you.

On To Submission
The next few "essentials" pages cover the basics of search engine submission. If all you do is the instructions on these essentials pages, you'll receive traffic from search engines. However, if you have time, you should also read beyond the essentials to understand how optimization can increase your traffic and other ways you can market your site with search engines.

Links along the way will explain where and how you can learn more within Search Engine Watch, should you have the desire. Some of the in-depth information is only available to Search Engine Watch members. See the membership information page to learn more about becoming a member.

Google buys IM company?

Google has reportedly agreed to buy upstart software maker Meetroduction, based in Chicago. The company's premiere service, Meetro, lets people find one another online within a local radius of a quarter of a mile, or from across the Atlantic; and then chat instantly with those strangers or friends. Meetro's free, downloadable software also doubles as a social-networking application, allowing people to add profiles of themselves and stake out the personal details of other conversationalists.
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Google already owns IM software through its acquisition of Picasa, a photo-sharing service. Picasa developed Hello, instant chat software that lets people swap photos, too.

Combining Hello and Meetro, Google could create a special brew of IM that features social and local networking, photo-sharing and geographic search and mapping. A prospective "Google ME (for messaging)" could help people meet and chat, then exchange photos to make sure there's potential chemistry. If so, two people could search for and read reviews on the local coffee house together using embedded Google search and find a map to the meeting location. Nifty. | source: CNET News.com

MSN Details Paid Search Product

MSN has a name and expected due date to its in-utero keyword bid management platform. The product is a critical component of the portal and its strategy going forward.
The paid search offering will be called MSN Keywords and launch in a closed beta come October, a spokesperson said. The pilot will be limited to 500 invitation-only marketers. The details come on the heels of Ask Jeeves' heralding its own sponsored listings platform.
MSN's paid search product will be the first component of MSN adCenter, a broad toolset that will enable ad placement throughout the whole network. In March, Microsoft demonstrated how adCenter would work, and said a keyword bidding tool would be its first component.
A version of MSN Keywords is now being tested in Singapore and France, Microsoft said.
Until the wide release of the Keywords product, MSN will continue to rely on rival Yahoo! to provide pay-per-click listings alongside its search results. Their agreement expires next summer.
Microsoft shares details of the PPC platform amid buzz over a similar product from Ask Jeeves, announced Monday. AJ parent InterActiveCorp hopes the offering will eventually replace the syndicated paid search listings it now receives from Google." | source: ClickZ News

Yahoo! Debuts Audio Search

MediaPost Publications - Yahoo! Debuts Audio Search - 08/05/2005: "Yahoo! Debuts Audio Search
by Gavin O'Malley, Friday, Aug 5, 2005 6:00 AM EST
ADDING AGAIN TO ITS ENTERTAINMENT offerings, Yahoo! on Thursday launched a free audio search engine capable of sorting through a hodgepodge of some 50 million songs, interviews, speeches, and podcasts. At the new Yahoo! Audio Search site, users can also search for photos and random information related to their musician or group of choice.
Yahoo! threw the digital downloading space for a loop in May when it gave individuals unlimited access to a catalog of more than a million songs for bargain basement prices.
The new audio search service, which can be found at audio.search.yahoo.com, has been integrated with Yahoo!'s video search, both of which encourage independent publishers to submit videos and music through Media RSS. "