How to Expedite Your New Website Listing with the Major Search Engines
June 2003. Everyone with a new website wants to see it listed on
Google or Yahoo. It’s not surprising, according to
the January 2003 Nielson/Net ratings, they were the two most widely used search
sites. Back a few years, if your site was optimized well, you could just submit
your URL to the major search engines and within weeks you’d likely be
listed. No guarantees, but that’s usually how it worked.
These days, it seems to be taking longer and, as I like to say, “WWW
= Who Wants to Wait.” We all know that no one likes to wait, so I’ve
updated my recommendations for getting listed to include some paid inclusion
programs and other strategies that should expedite the process.
How Google and Yahoo Work
Google is what is known as a web crawler—a site that automatically
crawls or spiders the web for new listings. Theoretically, most sites will
eventually be listed on the Google site. However, it can take many
months for a new site to appear.
Yahoo, a human-based directory system, charges $299.00 to review
a site within 7 days for inclusion in their directory system. Although they
don’t guarantee a listing and the fee is non-refundable, chances are
very good a site will be listed if it adheres to their guidelines. Mainly,
that the site is not an affiliate portal site that just points to other sites
and it’s a finished site with functioning links. See http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business
for more details.
Why Both Google and Yahoo are Important
A Google listing is important not only because it’s the most
widely used search engine, but also because its results feed the results for
other search sites. For example, Yahoo and AOL both display
Google results.
Yahoo is running a close second in the search popularity contest.
However, one might think that since Yahoo lists Google results,
why bother with the paid Yahoo listing. But a Yahoo listing
is important because one of the main factors Google uses to determine
a site’s value is the quality of links to that site. Yahoo
is a very popular portal. Google’s evaluation of your site
is enhanced by a Yahoo link. Therefore, Google is more likely
to include a site in its listings and improve the site’s rank within
those listings if the site is listed on Yahoo.
If you’re having trouble getting listed on Google, I recommend
that you pay Yahoo the $299.00 for the expedited 7-day site review.
You’ll get listed on Yahoo, and chances are it will expedite
your listing on Google.
It won’t hurt to get listed on some of the
other portals too—so read
on.
