From Wendy Boswell,
Your Guide to Web Search.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

Site submission is merely the process of telling search engines or search directories that your site is ready and willing to be included in their index. It's not a guarantee that your site will now instantly rocket to the top of the search engine listings; it just means that you're informing the world that your site exists.

Nowadays, it's not absolutely necessary to even submit your site to search engines since their spiders will usually get to your site without manual site submission. However, it's still considered very important to submit your site to search directories. Read more about site submission in my article titled No More Search Engine Submission - Submit To Directories Instead.

Here are a few general pointers to keep in mind when you are thinking about submitting your site:

• Check the listings first. Always search for your site in the particular search engine or directory that you're targeting for submission first. If your site is an established site, chances are you're already in the index, and there's no need to go through the submission process again.
• Read the fine print. That legal mumbo-jumbo is there for a good reason. Read all the guidelines before hitting the "submit" button, and make sure that you're complying with whatever they're asking of you.
• Be patient. Do not submit your site and then check every five minutes to see if you're now in the Top Ten. Submit it once, then check back in about six weeks.
• Keep records. One of the best things I ever did was to start an Excel spreadsheet of what search directories and search engines I had submitted my various sites to. Even if you've only got one site, and you're only submitting it to a couple of directories, keep track of when and what you've been doing. Believe me, you'll be thankful you've done this.

There's not really a specific time that I can give you of exactly when your site would be included in a search index after submission. The best policy it to optimize your site to be the very best it can be, submit it once, and then go back to optimizing, adding new content, and being patient. Eventually all your hard work will pay off.

That's it in a very small nutshell. Again, site submission is not going to be the magical fairy dust that propels your site to the top of the search ranking heap; it's just a factor in the search engine optimization process.