Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : Web Hosting Lounge : how to make a website searchable on search engines

[snoopgst]

how do I make a website searchable on search engines like yahoo, google, msn etc. ? I have been looking for information on this but i'm a bit confused. Is this something that can be done free? or does one have to pay the search engine site? Please someone guide me in the right direction.
TIA

[blackbelt080]

Originally posted by snoopgst
how do I make a website searchable on search engines like yahoo, google, msn etc. ? I have been looking for information on this but i'm a bit confused. Is this something that can be done free? or does one have to pay the search engine site? Please someone guide me in the right direction.
TIA

You have to submit your site through something, like CPanel (offered by some hosts)....

[ProgramGeek]

Hey Tia! You are a super sassy flute-playing webmaster/webmistress!

Well, here is my little recipe for getting googly chops to index you:

1.) Make the content
2.) Make an intrigueing title for the page people will click (that's related to what the persons looking for, not HEY, FREE XXX HERE! on a website that sells sock monkeys, that will be bad bad. )
3.) Meta tag.. Use a meta tag generator, such as: http://vancouver-webpages.com/META/mk-metas.html . If you want, make every page have unique meta tags (that's what I do, take in mind I also have no life). Or you can just give your whole entire site the same meta tag, or give every section a different one.
4.) Make sure your site is linked so the great gobbling googybot will spider your site nice n' good.
5.) Watch your sessy site appear on the search engine. You may want to tweak your tags/site a bit more after that to try and get a better taste.. uh, rank

Buy ProgramGeek's Marketing Cook book!
http://www.amazon.com/books/cook_books/programgeek (jk)

[IHSL]

^^ That's what happens when you drink too much coffee.

[EthicalEpi]

What are sock monkeys?

[RajanUrs]

You can submit to Google http://www.google.com/addurl.html and http://www.dmoz.com/add.html [ Though I never could find a category in DMOZ that accepts what I want to submit but its party time for hypnotherapist lol ]

Secondly before you submit dont be too enthusiastic about spamming the meta tag with any keywords you like. Smart search engines like Google compare the keywords with the content of your site and if they dont match your site is dumped into a bottomless pit never to surface again.

Next dont use frames and flash intros in the home page. This I am told confuses the search engine.[in my opinion dont use them anywhere except your personal site where only you visit]

You also have the option to bid/buy search engine placements and ads . Check it out at http://www.google.com/ads/ and http://www.overture.com/

It also helps to have links to your site on as many sites as possible. More the merrier to enhance your link popularity

Then there link exchange sites http://www.gotop.com/

Lastly you can submit for free in many others......but they will only use your email to spam you and its not much help otherwise.

[EthicalEpi]

All good advice from RajanUrs

Free submissions to smaller engines and directorys can also be useful though if you're getting listed in places that are relevant to your site and the place where your listing appears has a decent google page rank (download the google toolbar and it'll give you a rough indication of the page rank of any sites you visit).

If you're interested in paid inclusion I hunted out the link to the place we used for a recent project : http://www.positiontech.com/ Somoene here recommended them and it has worked out quite well for one of the sites we are promoting. They'll get you into some of the paid engines at a pretty good price.

Best to work on your site to make sure its search engine friendly first before doing that though. You might find sites like http://www.searchenginewatch.com/ usefull (do a google search for search engine optimisation information as there are other sites like this around that are also full of useful information).

Good luck.

[JayC]

Smart search engines like Google compare the keywords with the content of your site and if they dont match your site is dumped into a bottomless pit never to surface again.

Not exactly. These days, they just ignore the keywords meta tag. You won't be penalized for putting inappropriate stuff there, but it won't help. Still, too many words there may hurt a little, to the extent that any extraneous stuff in the file may have a negative effect (which is why well-SEOd websites don't use all those goofy meta tags that the typical "meta tag generator" spits out. There are only a couple of meta tags worth bothering with: description (at least on the index page) and Content-Type; optionally keywords and robots. Revisit-After meta tags make me laugh and laugh).

It also helps to have links to your site on as many sites as possible. More the merrier to enhance your link popularity

"Helps" is putting it mildly. It's essential. Search engines, including Google, won't list you if they can't find your site through another link in their index -- whether you submit or not. In fact, it's usually not necessary to submit to Google. Get a couple of links and you'll probably be in within a few weeks.

If you're interested in paid inclusion I hunted out the link to the place we used for a recent project : http://www.positiontech.com/ Somoene here recommended them

I wouldn't go so far as to "disrecommend" PositionTech, but they have had some issues of late, so I know that some people have gone so far as to stop recommending them. The main value that PT's service gives you is Inktomi inclusion; you can find alternatives on the Search Submit page of Inktomi's site.

[EthicalEpi]

Not exactly. These days, they just ignore the keywords meta tag. You won't be penalized for putting inappropriate stuff there, but it won't help.

You might be penalised for stuffing too many keywords and phrases in there though so that's something to bear in mind. I know that's not what you meant JayC but just to point that out.

I think some of the smaller engines still use metatag keywords and in a few of them the description tags will be what's displayed under your title in the search results, so those tags are still quite important as far as I can see.

Still, too many words there may hurt a little, to the extent that any extraneous stuff in the file may have a negative effect (which is why well-SEOd websites don't use all those goofy meta tags that the typical "meta tag generator" spits out. There are only a couple of meta tags worth bothering with: description (at least on the index page) and Content-Type; optionally keywords and robots. Revisit-After meta tags make me laugh and laugh).

Those are the only tags I bothered with. And I thought I was just being lazy Glad you pointed that out because now I know not to even worry about that in the future.

I wouldn't go so far as to "disrecommend" PositionTech, but they have had some issues of late, so I know that some people have gone so far as to stop recommending them. The main value that PT's service gives you is Inktomi inclusion; you can find alternatives on the Search Submit page of Inktomi's site.

We used their service a month or two back and it seemed quite good at that time. The main advantage was having the three networks of engines in the one place which seemed to cover pretty much everything that we needed except yahoo.

Do you know what the issues were they were having for future referene. I'll check out the search submit link and bear that in mind in the future.

[nuthin]

make sure your website works in a text browser such as LYNX.
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html

[MikeM]

Originally posted by EthicalEpi
What are sock monkeys?

http://www.sock-monkey.com/sockmonkey.html

For an estimated twenty thousand years, sock monkeys and humans have existed in a symbiotic relationship with one another. This relationship began with the monkey's favorite food, lint, which was produced in vast quantities in the prehistoric dryers of humans. Lured by the lint, hungry sock monkeys began to wander into laundry rooms. Humans did not like lint, so they encouraged the monkeys to stay. Slowly over thousands of years they adapted to living in our homes. The monkeys have lost their ability to hunt and can no longer live in the wild. Their ferocious lint grabbing claws have now atrophied into plush little stumps. In fact, today's sock monkeys rarely even move.

[EthicalEpi]

hahah. That makes perfect sense now. I thought it was a euphamism - didn't realise it was meant literally

[JayC]

Originally posted by EthicalEpi
You might be penalised for stuffing too many keywords and phrases in there though so that's something to bear in mind. I know that's not what you meant JayC but just to point that out.

Maybe it depends on what you mean by "penalized." Personally I don't use that expression to mean "anything detrimental to rankings." To me, you're only penalized if you get a specific reaction to something you did that violates policy or "best practices." You won't get penalized for anything you do with meta keywords. In most cases they'll have no effect at all. If you use too many, some resources that do use them will just cut them off at a prescribed character limit. Some will only read a limited file size, so anything extra in the file -- long lists of keywords, for example, or useless meta tags -- could in rare circumstances hurt you that way.

I think some of the smaller engines still use metatag keywords and in a few of them the description tags will be what's displayed under your title in the search results, so those tags are still quite important as far as I can see.

Some search engines used in academic environments, and some intranet-related search tools, use meta keywords. But in most cases for normal Internet-based general search engines you may as well just leave them out. When they have been used sporadically in the recent past they've been given so little algorithmic weight that they're unlikely to have any effect.

You're right that some search engines will display the meta descriptions, at least for the home page.

Do you know what the issues were they were having for future referene. I'll check out the search submit link and bear that in mind in the future.

There was a flap in November raised by a number of people who said that they had paid for listings, and could find them in PT's database but not at MSN or anywhere else that used Inktomi.

But... I just went looking for an update on that (it hadn't affected us directly, but we haven't used positiontech) and found a thread at webmasterworld where the cause is explained as a change in how Inktomi handles duplicate listings (including instances when the same page is both a paid listing and a spidered listing in their database), and so not PT's fault at all.

Again, none of this is first-hand experience, but you can read one webmasterworld thread with details here: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum1/2391.htm

[snoopgst]

What do you guys do to make your websites searchable on search engines (yahoo,google etc)
https://adwords.google.com/select/ is this service any good?

[IHSL]

Originally posted by snoopgst
What do you guys do to make your websites searchable on search engines (yahoo,google etc)
https://adwords.google.com/select/ is this service any good?

Adwords is good, but from your post, you are looking to make your site more search engine friendly...

Adwords is a Pay-Per-Click program, that has no effect on your actual website ranking on the main search engine.