SEO Glossary - Search Engine Submission

D M O R S

Directory

a compilation of websites reviewed and organized by human editors into useful categories and topics, similar to the organization of the Yellow Pages. Examples of directories are Yahoo! Directory, About.com and the Open Directory Project. Directory is a web page or an entire website dedicated to listing Internet web pages. Directories use human editors to review and categorize sites for acceptance and are compiled manually by user submission. Sites such as UKwizz have their own directory that accepts websites submitted from the general public. The biggest directory is the Open Directory Project, which has members of the public editing the categories. Many sites use a Yahoo-like directory including major portal sites. Submission to directories is important because they provide a long-term link to your site from a relevant page. It will increase your link popularity and, as a minor advantage, you can expect some traffic from them. Each directory listing contains short descriptive information about the site. Strong directory listings are an excellent way your company can increase its link popularity and its Google PageRank. However, a poorly written listing that is submitted to Yahoo! (and subsequently edited or run with ineffective writing or keyword research) can negatively influence a search marketing campaign.

DMOZ

abbr. Directory MOZilla

Manual Submission

the process of submitting websites or web pages to search engines and directories for inclusion in their databases using specific guidelines unique to each index. When people look for a submission tool, they often think about something that saves them a lot of time. Submissions to large directories such as Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ are considered strategic. We recommend that you submit to these and other directories manually. Each directory is unique in its category structure, requirements and title/description length. Read the submission guidelines carefully to learn the best approach to directories. Search engines sometimes prevent automated submissions by including captcha together with the site data. Submission to these search engines can only be manual. Some search engines and directories only accept paid submissions or paid options have advantages like prominent position or regular updating of a Web page in the index. There are bid-for-placement auctions like former Overture, a pioneer in this area. These are also called pay-per-click search engines. You can only submit to this type of engine manually. You will find the 'best of breed' directories and search engines wanting manual submissions in our 'Manual Submission' section. On the information page, there are some facts about these search engines that help.

ODP

abbr. Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/)

Resubmission

repeating the search engine registration process one or more times for the same page or website. This is regarded with suspicion by search engines because it can be indicative of spamming techniques.

Search Engine Submission

the process by which one makes search engines aware that one's website is ready to be indexed by the search engine spiders. In general search engines spider the web on a regular basis and will eventually find your web site by following a link from a site already within its index. It is sometimes necessary however to manually submit a new site which has not been linked or to use a paid-for-inclusion process to ensure quick inclusion into the database. The search engine submission process involves going to a specified section of the search engine website (the "Add URL" page) and inputting details which can include those web pages that one requires to be spidered. The term 'submission' also covers the process of requesting a listing in the directories.

Site Submission

the actual process by which a site is directly submitted to a search engine for inclusion into its database. Some search engines charge a certain amount for guaranteed inclusion into their search index.

Sub-Category

directories are typically divided into top-level categories that contain sub-categories or lower level categories. Directories often run several category levels deep.

Submission

a process of entering a URL and other information about a site in a special form and submitting this form to a search engine so it includes your site in its index. In the early stages of Web building, submission to a search engine was the only way of telling them about a site's existence and getting them to visit and register it. New technologies made it possible for the search engines to crawl the Web regularly and, as a result, cross-linking of the Web sites became a more important factor for the site inclusion. There are several small search engines having crawlers with limited functionality. These search engines do not regularly spider the Web. They accept submissions as their primary method of inclusion of new sites. These are the majority of search engines in our Auto Submission section. If you want traffic from these search engines, you should submit to them. There are two main questions that need answering when talking about submissions: 1) how many pages you need to submit and 2) how often you will need to resubmit. We recommend that you submit only the main page to a directory and a few most important and keyword-optimized pages to a search engine. You do not need to resubmit pages unless you are sure they were not indexed after the first submission.

Submission Service

any agent which submits your site to many search engines and directories. Useful to get listed with many of the minor search engines, but don't rely on such services to get listed with the major search engines. Many of these services are automatic and run from websites. Others run offline. Some are free. Beware of supplying your email address to the so-called FFA (free for all) services - you may receive lots of spam.