From Wendy Boswell,
Your Guide to Web Search.
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There's no need for search engine submission anymore - the practice of submitting your site manually to search engines in order to be included in their listings. However, it's still a good idea to submit to search directories, and here's why:

• Links to your site will enable search engine spiders (software programs that crawl the Web) to index your site.
• Inbound links such as these are part of the whole process that search engines use to rank your site.

Search engines will find your site all by themselves without any site submission help from you; they find pages in your site as long as there are links (see above) to them. Here are some excellent directories to submit your site to:

• The Open Directory: one of the oldest search directories on the Web.
• Yahoo Directory: You have a couple of different site submission options with the Yahoo directory.

Search Directory Site Submission Guidelines

Read the rules and follow them. If there are guidelines that they are asking you to abide by, then make sure you do that.

Choose your category wisely. Once you've submitted your site to a particular category within the search directory, it can be difficult to change it later. Choose wisely the first time.

Write a good description. You only get one chance to "sell" your site with a search directory site submission, so make sure that the description you write is correct, keyword phrase targeted, and adheres to the search directory guidelines.