Anyone Used Submit Express

Has anyone used Submit Express? They claim to submit your site to 40 search engines for free - including google, hotbot, lycos, etc. as well as a bunch of web crawlers. Just wondering what the catch is; don't see one listed on their site.

Also, does anyone have any tips on submitting to search engines?

Hi Wen,

No catch i don't think, they just want you to upgrade to the posher paid version, so it's a way of bringing you onboard, as it were.

It's a bit like the PageKits here - people use and like them and often come back wanting us to do work for them.

Getting people to talk about their search engine tips is like getting the Masons to talk about silly handshakes I fear - mostly people really protect their ideas on this!

Simon
ELATED : )



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ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

Hi Wen,
I wouldn't bother using Submit Express for submissions unless you set up a one off webmail box, I tried this for one site a couple of years ago and I'm still getting spam to the address I used! The only thing I use Submit Express for now is their rather good Tag Analyser.
If you want some tips on search engine optimisation and submission I can either post up some SEO forums and sites that I frequent or maybe Simon and Matt could start off an Elated SEO Forum because it really is a subject all on it's own. I'm pretty sure some of the budding webmasters in here would like more info on how to optimise their sites using good techniques.

Simon, the SEO's among us do like to share our knowledge, especially among the newbie designers where it means getting the best practice message heard rather than them picking up dubious methods from various sources, and Elated would be a good place to start as I would guess a large proportion of the members are newbies and not quite ready for some of the heavyweight SEO discussions that occur.

Wen, to start with for SEO, don't worry about PageRank at Google and don't aim to optimise the whole site for one keyphrase, each page can have its own targetted phrase(s), The title tag is most important for most of the SEs and you can get good results with this alone, The whole thing is not an exact science as nobody really knows the SE algorithms, getting good results are all down to experience and observations.
More important is to get some listings in the directories DMOZ, JoeAnt, Gimpsy, GoGuides Websavvy etc. If your site is non-commercial I'm a member at Zeal so I can try and get a listing there. Once you have some backlinks the crawlers will find your site faster than if you submit (Google suggest 6 weeks min after submission for a review but no guarantees it will get reviewed at all!) I'm assuming PFI is not an option of course, but if you get some backlinks it can be as little as 2 days before a spider visit.
If you have any questions on specifics post a thread in the design forum and we'll see what develops.


Chris.


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Chris.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
http://webmaster-talk.eu/

Fair points from Chris there. We've had some people want to discuss it and some that really don't. It's a tricky one I know...

Simon
ELATED : )

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ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

Chris/Simon,

My question was not intended to ask for inside trade secrets, but rather I just wondered if people generally use services such as Submit Express, or pay for submissions, or if they spends hours doing the leg work of manually submitting their sites themselves. I should have been more specific.

I figured I'd be opening myself up to some major spam, that is why I posted the question on Submit Express.

Chris, if you are willing to share the forums and sites you find useful, that would be great. Thanks for the tips you listed.

Wen

Hi Wen,
Before doing any submitting make sure your site is spider friendly, use http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi `to check.
Going down the manual submission route gives you a better chance to tweak the site title and description to suit that particular directories style, if you take a look at the directory first you'll get the idea and it MAY get the editor to review your site a little sooner because you've made an effort.

For the submissions there's not many SEs worth submitting to that won't find your site from backlinks.
Directory submissions are the first step, these are the best to go for.
http://www.dmoz.org (long wait at dmoz)
http://www.joeant.com
http://www.gimpsy.com
http://www.goguides.org
http://www.websavvy.cc
look for add url or suggest a site link.
there is also http://www.netnose.com still in beta testing but worth a look at for the future.

Avoid the link farms and the FFA pages

Crawler based engines worth submitting to though don't expect much referral traffic from some of these
http://www.gigablast.com
http://www.altavista.com
http://www.exactseek.com
http://www.scrubtheweb.com

note the lack of Google in there. Google will find your site quicker through links rather than submitting. There may be some specialist or niche directories in your field as well to submit to.

for useful sites there are a lot, I'll post a few
http://www.searchenginewatch.com
http://www.sitepronews.com
http://www.highrankings.com
http://www.submitcorner.com

forums these are easily the best
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums
http://www.highrankings.com/forum

Chris.

[Edited by chrishirst on 16-Aug-03 03:35]

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Chris.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
http://webmaster-talk.eu/

Chris,

This is fantastic info. I really do recommend would-be designers give this some thought. Something else worth considering is building irresitible sites! With the groovy Elated templates you're on your way. But also learn a little about search engine optimisation (SEO) and words such as key word density and the importance of title and descriptions (metatags seem to have lost their most of their value although I still use them just in case).

I know many sites are still being built without these considerations and have a hrd time being found on search engines.

Michael

By the way, another thought.

It might be worth considering some of the larger non-English engines if that's relevant to your site. voila.fr springs to mind. On some sites, I have also got good activity from the Nordic countries thorugh search engines.

Chris,

Just wanted to second Michael's comment - that's great SEO info you've posted there. Thanks for sharing it with everyone

Matt
ELATED : )

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

first of all thanks chrishirst for giving us those links. these sites are very good. Dmoz.org is a really nice site that give your site better popularity over numerous other sites.

Hi Wen, ya there are sites available that are saying that they will do the link building using some kind of robots to submit more than 100 sites at a time but many of them are lier.

Anyways thanks to all i got this nice list of directory.

Jolie

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http://www.semsols.co.uk

Take note that it was well over SIX years ago that I posted those and a lot has changed in that time.

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Chris.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
http://webmaster-talk.eu/

Hi chrishirst, I must join the others and say thanks for sharing those links. I have personally found that submitting to local directories in your home country also works wonders for my and my clients sites.

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http://www.mauconline.net

@mauco: Good idea about submitting to local directories. This can really help for businesses that are targeted to a specific area. You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to tell Google what country the site is based in - helps with Google Local search etc. (Site configuration > Settings > Geographic target)

Cheers,
Matt

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Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/