WEB SITE

Intro

Free URL (web address) Submission to Search Engine or Engines

Search engines are specialized sites that help visitors find the web resources they are seeking. AltaVista and Yahoo! are examples of search engines. By submission of your site url (or web address) to search engines you make it far more likely that visitors will be able to find your site.

The top 10 search engines get the vast majority of the business, so you really want to emphasize registering on these engines. Specialized search engines may help you since they cater to people looking for your specific type of site and if they are in the same area of specialization as your site. You will probably have to find the specialized search engines yourself. I list only very few of them.

Free submission may get you included in the "natural search results" that are given to a search engine user. If your site looks interesting to the search engine based observers and/or the automated programs (sometimes called "spiders" or web robots) that check out your website after you submit it...it may turn up in some of the search engines "natural search" results. On the other hand you can pay for search engine placement by entering the world of "search engine marketing". Search engine marketing goes beyond the scope of this discussion, however the major search engines provide plenty of information and services for search engine marketing.

It is possible to get some visitors from search engines by submitting your site to their free submission utility. Listed below are links that will take you directly to the free submission utility pages of some of these search engines.

The BIG Picture:

There are two major sides of search engines, "search field/index" and "directory". In a search field type search engine the person looking for information on the web will enter key words in a text box, and click on a box that says something like "search" or "go" ... and the search engine generates a list of web page addresses that the search engine thinks will match the key words you entered. The list will include natural results (apparently a free index of relevant websites) and a listing of websites that have paid to be listed ... based on the search term that had been entered. If you have submitted your page to the search engine your page may turn up in the list of free ("natural") pages the searcher gets from the search engine.

In addition to the search box, some search engines also have a directory. A typical "directory" has a list of possible subjects the searcher may be interested in and when the searcher clicks on one of the subjects, he/she is taken to another page with more specific subjects. The searcher clicks on one of the more specific subjects and is taken to an even more specific list, and so on ... until the searcher finally get to the specific level he/she is looking for ... where the searcher finds a long list of web pages that may have the information he/she is looking for. (The directory appears as an organized section of underlined words. They may be labeled "directory", "explore", "categories", or "topics").

To submit your site you will go to the search engines submission page (the links below)and input your site address (also called a URL) and some other information. The search engine will examine, and hopefully list your page.(The submission links I have listed below go the submission page.) You should be aware that some of these search engines may include your site almost immediately, but others may take weeks or months.

For some "directory" type search engines, you may have to search (briefly)through directory subjects until you find THE subject in the directory that you think your page would best fit. Then you can enter your url and other information. You can also pay for listing in directories.

Once you have submitted your site to a given search engine it is best to wait three weeks before submitting it again. If you submit it too often the search engine can take it as harassment and drop your page.

Search engines perform periodic checks on the pages they have accepted so that dead pages will be eliminated. The catch is that even after they have accepted your page the search engine may check your site and if the server your page is on is down, your page may be dropped as a dead page. Therefore it is a good idea to resubmit your page periodically (not more often than monthly). It is also a good idea to resubmit your page if you have updated and revised your page.

Helpful hint: Before you actually go to the search engine pages you could open a word processor (Word Pad or NotePad is usually good enough). In the word processor enter your name, your email address, the web address(es) you want to enter into the search engines, a brief (30 word or less) description of each of the site(s), a set of key words (terms a visitor might search for to find your site), and the title of the site(s). Each of these items should be on a separate line. Minimize the word processor document but don't close it, keep it in the background. Then when you go to each search engine page, cut and paste the text you need from the word processor document. This can really save you some time.

IMPORTANT hint: Meta Tags Having good Meta Tags on your site can be critical to the success of your effort. If you are not familiar with this concept, "Meta Tags", see my discussion of meta tags.

PRIORITY SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION LINKS

Yahoo!/Altavista/AllTheWeb, etc.

National Directory Project <-Priority!!

DMOZ <-Priority!!

Jayde

Splat

Cross Search A "Christian" search engine

This site may also be useful to you in track down useful search engines: The Web Robots Page

WEBRINGS

A Webring occurs where a group of websites on related subjects are pooled by providing links to one another. Many webring organizers were taken over by web-industrialists a few years ago...so the value and merit of webrings is controversial...never-the-less it may be worth checking them out. Here are some leads...

THE FOLLOWING ARE SITES THAT LINK TO NUMEROUS RINGS, SO YOU CAN FIND SOME RINGS TO JOIN:

Webring.com

Ring Surf

Bomis.com NOTE: Bomis can be baffling -- but many people seem to use it.

FREE CLASSIFIED ADS

Yahoo!

Excite Classifieds

1AmericaMall

Sunstream

Banner Exchange

Overview. In a "free" banner exchange service, you provide space for an advertisement (called a banner) on your web site by inserting the service provider's HTML into your page. Also, you place your own banner advertisement in the form of an gif file (usually) in your own site directory. Basically the service provider sends banner ads to your page (where the HTML was inserted) when people visit your page, and the service provider shows your banner ad (the one in your directory) in the same manner on other people's web sites. They make their money, usually, by selling the showing of banners. In other words they only show your banner about half as often as other people's banners appear on your page (this is a 2:1 ratio, you show their ad twice, they show your ad once). That means they can "sell" about half the banner appearances on your page and show your banner only about 50% as often as you are showing someone else's.

One tricky thing about it is that they may not count every visit to your page as a showing (depending on the service you use). They may only count a showing as when they change to a new banner on your site, this is called an "image impression". They change the ad about every other time that it is visited (downloaded), so in reality your banner may be shown once for about every four visits (this is why you should read the fine print). Some services claim to give you credit for an ad impression every time their banner ad completes downloading on to your site during a visit.)

If they are showing your ad once for every two "ad impressions" on your site, that is called a 2:1 ratio. There are services that will provide a 1:1 ratio (they insert some other kind of advertising with yours) or a 3:1 ratios claiming higher quality.

Now keep in mind that you can buy the "ad impressions" they sell, also.

A catch in these services is that you can't really police them. They will report to you how have many ad impressions you have accumulated and how many times they have shown your ad on other pages, but how do you know? There are also allegedly, people who join these banner exchanges and later some how hide the banner on an isolated page or in a frame. The banner exchange service gets robbed by sites like that, but you get robbed too if it was your banner they were supposed to be showing.

Banner exchanges are more likely to be useful to you if your site has wide appeal. Humor, food, entertainment , cars, and sports for example are likely to have wider appeal than rocket science, Roman poets, and spiders. (This is not to say one topic is "better" than another but, Joe and Jill Surfer are more likely to be interested in food, less likely in spiders, in my opinion.) So if you have a site of broad interest you are more likely to have a greater benefit from banner exchanges. Also, the banner exchange tends to be a "rich get richer" system in that the more visitors you have, the more advertising you get.

To participate in a banner exchange service you will need the banner, that they will show. Usually this banner advertisement of yours should be about 468x60 pixels in size. (You can get an idea of how big that is by the banner ad at the top of this page, well actually that one is a little bigger than that but it is pretty close.) You can make your own banner if you know how to use "Paint" (that comes with Windows) or another graphics software that can make a gif file. (banners are usually gif files). There are web sites that will make you a free banner, see some of their links in the list below.

Despite its drawbacks banner exchange can get your message out to people who otherwise wouldn't see it, AND it usually requires no maintenance, and little time beyond setting it up, so you might want to go for it. (By the way, if you have a free page you may be required to use THEIR systems banner exchange.)

Each banner exchange service has its own terms and conditions so be sure to read and understand them before you sign up.

I provide a link here, but these types of services are fairly easy to find using a search engine.

Banner Exchange: 123 Banners

ListServs and Bulletin Boards

Another relevant way to promote and announce your site is by being a participant in ListServs and Bulletin Boards. The idea here is that you have some kind of expertise, and you demonstrate that through your web page. Since ListServs and Bulletin Boards are groups of experts and wannabe experts who communicate to share information on the web, and since you have expertise, you can participate in these groups letting people know about your web site.

In a Listserv (also sometimes called a "mailing list") members join, and have their name put on the mailing list. Once they have joined they then can send email to the list, all the members get it. The Listserv is created for a particular topic, it could be collecting Beanie Babies, Psychology, car repair, or basically any topic.

In joining a list serv you are really, in a sense, promoting yourself by virtue of sharing your expertise or your questions with the group. None-the-less if you have a web page that is concerned with the same topic as the Listserv and you include the name and URL for your site with your email signature, the other people on the Listserv who may be interested in your site will learn about it.

NOW ... never spam a Listserv ... if you do that you demonstrate a lack of a serious, professional attitude and you are likely to be flamed and kicked off the Listserv (the idea is to let people who are "in the know", know about you and your site, not to be tarred and feathered and run out of town). Therefore only mention your page on the Listserv if it is topical, such as if it is relevant to mention it in answer to someone else's legitimate question on the Listserv, or in your signature block. Avoid dumping advertising or shameless promotion in front of your peers, or the shame is likely to be on you!! Also, ListServs are usually moderated, which means that somebody, the moderator, looks at the incoming emails before they go out to the list. The moderator can screen out spam or other inappropriate material and remove offenders from membership.

A Bulletin Board is similar to a Listserv except that the means of communication is an online bulletin board INSTEAD of an email list and people usually sign-up with a general service that provides a lot of Bulletin Boards rather than for the specific Bulletin Board. (Sometimes a Bulletin Boards is just called a "Forum", "Discussion", "Usenet", or a "NewsGroup".)

A bulletin board is a site on the net where you can leave a message for all visitors to see, and the visitors, can leave a response or comments on the message you left. Their replies or comments are also visible to all visitors. You have to sign up with a service to be part of it because if you are not signed up, you can't leave messages . However, even if you are not signed up you can usually read the bulletin board before you join so you can see what they are talking about.

Some bulletin boards are moderated, which means that there is someone who can delete your message (also called "a post" or "posting") before it is displayed or they can delete it after it is displayed. This prevents spam and obscenities from being posted. However, there is a class of bulletin boards called .alt bulletin boards that are not moderated. Freedom of speech rules! along with spam and ... well you know.

My advice is don't spam a Bulletin Board even if it is not moderated, unless you are desperate. If you do spam it, it won't do much for the image of your site and it makes you look desperate (this is my opinion anyway). To stay "legit" you can usually mention your page in your signature block, or in response to a legitimate question, but dumping advertising or shameless promotion may hurt your sites image more than it helps your traffic.

To look for more specific information on a specific Listserv go to their home page. It will usually include an archive of all past correspondence and a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section. Services that host Bulletin Boards also have home pages with a FAQ section.

The cousin to the bulletin board is the Guestbook (there's one on this page). In a Guestbook anyone can sign in and leave a message, and anyone can view the messages. However with a guestbook there is no hierarchy. In a bulletin board you can leave a message and if someone comments on it that comment is placed "with" or "under" your message. So comments are organized under the messages, and then there may be comments under the comments, etc. A Guestbook is just a running commentary, a list of messages and comments.

You can also get a Guestbook for your page and you can start your own listserv. You can also put a bulletin board on your site, if your page provider offers it. (Be aware that if you have a free page you may have to use your providers services where they are available, but if they don't offer these services or if you pay for your page you may be able to just use whatever service you find.)

Relevant Sites:

Yahoo! E Groups You can also start your own ListServ here!
Guestbook (or a related service) for Your Site

Guest Gear