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Promotion Tip:
Top 10 Reasons Why You Aren't In The Search Engines
by Larisa Thomason,
Senior Web Analyst,
NetMechanic, Inc.
Why is your Web site not listed in the search engines? We may have the answer! Check our Top 10 list of reasons why your site is invisible to searchers.
10. You Believe In Santa Claus.
Small children believe all you have to do is be good and Santa brings gifts. Some webmasters believe that a good Web site attracts search engine spiders just as easily - if they wait long enough, the spider will eventually find the site.
Wrong: you have to submit to get noticed! There are thousands of new Web sites every day clamoring for attention, so don't be passive. Web site promotion is too important to leave to chance - you have to submit, submit, and submit again!
9. The Doorbell Was Broken.
Did your site respond when the search engine spiders visited? They don't make appointments, so make sure you use a reliable Web host who keeps your site up and running. While many Web host companies promise 99.9% uptime, 41% of Web servers experienced substantial downtime last year.
Do you know how well your site performs? NetMechanic's Server Check service will monitor your site 24 hours per day and alert you to problems.
8. The Vanishing Cream Worked.
Most ecommerce sites rely on databases to serve up specific information to their visitors using a program like Cold Fusion to render the pages dynamically. That's great for visitors because they get relevant information customized to their particular request. Webmasters love it too because they have less pages to maintain: dynamic pages appear only in the visitor's browser, then vanish.
But there's a problem: most search engines robots can only index static pages. Be sure that you're submitting pages to search engines that the robots can actually read and index.
7. Spam Sites Get Canned.
You mother was right: you are known by the company you keep. Your site may be blocked because you share a Web host (and underlying IP address) with a lot of spam sites.
Some search engines block sites hosted by free Web site providers because of the spam problem. You can also have problems with a paid provider too - especially if the host accepts adult-oriented Web sites. Since search engines report that adult sites are often some of the worst spam offenders, check with your Web hosting company to see if it hosts adult sites.
You may also have used some perfectly innocent (to you) design techniques that got you banned because spammers use the same approach to try and fool search engines.
NetMechanic's Search Engine Power Pack will scan your page and flag questionable design or coding techniques that some search engines interpret as spam.
6. Gone In A Splash!
Search engine spiders are quiet, solitary creatures who hate razzle-dazzle: it just confuses them. So if you use a splash page as your home page, you may be turning them away. Splash pages are often heavy on graphics but light on content. Search engine spiders simply can't index pages that have no content to evaluate or links to follow. Unlike humans, spiders love text-heavy, ugly pages.
Be sure to include TITLE and META tags on your splash page and give the spider some text links to follow so it can find your real content. Search Engine Power Pack contains META Mechanic, a META tag generator that can help you quickly write effective META tags for your site.
5. Spiders Hate Confined Spaces.
You have to give a search engine spider a good reason to crawl through your frame because they have an uneasy relationship with framed sites. Many spiders can only see the top-level frame code. It's almost impossible for the spider to collect any useful information about your framed site unless you include links inside your NOFRAMES tag.
With nothing to see and do, the spider leaves your site without indexing it.
Stories in our September 2000 and November 2000 newsletters discuss this tag in detail.
4. There Was No Room At The Inn.
Some search engine databases have an upper limit on the number of pages they can index. When the database is full, they don't place your site on a waiting list. Some engines simply block new submissions - Excite didn't index any new sites for months in early 2000! You may have to submit several times to the same engine before getting one of the coveted database spots.
3. It Was Spring Cleaning Time.
Sometimes, Web sites get dropped due to technical problems at the search engine, but engines often drop sites on purpose too.
Search engines want to keep their databases up to date and packed with the most recent and useful information. Some will periodically review the age of Web sites they have in their index and delete the old sites to make room for the new ones.
Avoid this problem by resubmitting your site regularly. Search engines will view it as a new site and not age it out and your fresh content will be indexed. You can schedule regular resubmissions using your site's saved profile with Search Engine Power Pack.
2. You Expected Instant Gratification
Be patient. While most search engines promise to visit your site within 1-2 weeks after your submit it, the reality is that you may wait months for a spider. There's a tremendous backlog of sites and more are submitted and resubmitted every day.
You best bet is to submit once, then resubmit every week or so until you get listed. Once you're listed, cut back on submissions because submitting too often can hurt you by getting you banned as a spam site. Once a week is fine. Several times per day (or even once per day with some search engines) is too often.
Since the process is so slow, make sure your site is ready to submit before you send it in.
And the #1 reason you aren't in the search engines is...
1. You Used A Broken Tool!
Use a search engine submission service that works. Search engines are tricky: they frequently change their URL submission addresses and requirements. A submission engine that isn't updated regularly may be submitting the wrong information to the wrong place. And you'll never know it if they don't provide feedback about each submission.
Be careful about the "free" submission services that promise to send your site to the "Top 1000 Search Engines!" First of all, there aren't that many worthwhile search engines. Second, this is often a scam designed to get your email address and sell it to spammers. Within days, your email box could be inundated with offers for everything from mail order university diplomas to a new identity.
What you don't get is a search engine listing.
Instead, submit your site quickly - and with confidence - to 100 search engines with NetMechanic's Search Engine Starter.
Search Engine Starter works:
- Our tools are continually updated to reflect changes in search engine requirements.
- We offer the only submission service that gives you feedback about each individual submission. If the search engine doesn't accept the submission, we'll alert you to the problem.
- We protect your email address. Some search engines will send you email messages following your registration. At your request, we'll use a substitute address while submitting your site.
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Experts agree! Workz.com recently conducted a survey of their users, asking them what experience they had with search engine submission tools. The result:
"Of all the submission services used, only NetMechanic seemed to improve search engine listings, making Netmechanic a great value."
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