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heartsez Oct 19, 2005

anybody have any experince with submiting sites to search engines? are they all services you have to pay for now> or is there a way still to submit them yourself?
do they help do you think? any fav ones? thanks!! deb

pandamac Oct 19, 2005

Hi Deb, The last person I had make changes to my web site submitted me to google, yahoo and vxbox. These were free locations. I have no idea how to do it, I leave it to the person taking care of the web page......Hope it helps! Ellen

Helena Oct 19, 2005

Most of the big search engines have a link on their homepage that will take you to a section for webmasters. For instance, in Google click on the 'about Google' link. However, if you simply leave your webpage up long enough the Google 'bot' will find your site as a matter of course....usually within a week or two. So you should find yourself listed without doing anything. It's fairly important to have some keywords in the metatags at the top of the page. If that sounds like gobble-de-gook  ;), you can find lots of information online by searching for 'keywords'.

OK, here's a useful link: http://www.apromotionguide.com/ . They mention the open directory, yahoo and looksmart as the important places to submit a site. They also describe the use of 'keywords'.

Hope this helps! Good Luck!!! 

Laura Lynn Banner SponsorOct 19, 2005

Hi Deb!

There was a discusson a bit ago about bringing collectors to your website.  Here's a link to that thread:

http://www.teddy-talk.com/viewtopic.php?id=1616

Look for Soctt's response (Teddy-Bears.org)  He talks about how important TEXT is for search engines.  It's true!  I get hits from google, msn & yahoo when people search for particular WORDS.  (like teddy bear, artist bear,.... you get the idea!)

How do I know this?  Thanks to Shelli, I use a counter on my site from here:  (and it's FREE!)
http://www.statcounter.com/

Scott also mentions getting rid of "frames".  If you don't know what they are, you probably are NOT using them (so don't worry!)  He is SO right about that!  When I had my online "store" I lost almost ALL hits from the search engines... cause the store uses FRAMES!  Switched back to my regular site and I'm getting hits again.  This does take time.

Also.... instead of having your home page just an "Enter" page... put some text on it!  Really makes a big difference for the search engines!

Now... here's some places to submit your site.  I'm only including the top engines (in my opinion)

Yahoo:  http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.htm … -tab-web-t

Google:  http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

MSN:  http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2

I don't know if you can submit a site to AOL search... couldn't find it.

How did I find these?  I went to these search engines and clicked on "help"  In there somewhere I found a link about submitting your site to their search engine. 

Off to make bears!

heartsez Oct 19, 2005

thanks for all the great responses!! i have a home page with text,,and i have meta tags..the site has been up quite awhile but a while back i bought a second domain name to "point" to the  same site,,and made it a group site,,when i checked out submiting to search engines myself all i could find was places to join their site and plans to pay for them to submit my site,,just wondered if any of them were free anymore!! will try the links that you all were kind enough to send!! big thanks ! deb

teddy_bears_org Oct 20, 2005

And just to add to this, the search engine you want to post to is http://www.dmoz.org. This is a community search engine with a number of editors who check each site for submission. All the major search engine (except Google) use the data from dmoz. DMOZ gives its search engine listings away and hotbot, aol, yahoo and more use it. dmoz.org is a prize if you get listed.

To get added, go to the website and go through the directory for the section you want to be listed on. Once there, look for the add site or add url on the page.

-- Scott

heartsez Oct 20, 2005

Thank you Scott i just went and did that!  I didnt realize the museum had closed!! How come?  deb

teddy_bears_org Oct 20, 2005

The official reason is the main contributor to he museum passed away and the funds were not available. The original collection came from the main contributor.

heartsez Oct 20, 2005

thats awful!  thanks again for the help everybody!! deb