Getting your site listed on search engines and directories

The burgeoning number of Internet search engines and directories adopt a range of approaches for establishing their entries for the websites they catalogue. This may involve their using software (often referred to as crawlers or spiders) to scan either the text or the metadata (or both) contained within the pages of the site. It may involve having a human visit the site to catalogue it manually. Or it may involve both automated and human processes.

It is well worth consulting the Search Engine Report website to find out what criteria are used by the most widely used Internet search systems to create catalogue entries for the websites on which they hold information. It is sometimes the case that rearranging page content or restructuring your HTML markup will make a difference to a website’s search engine rankings.

Almost every Internet search engine and directory has a web page on which web managers can submit their website’s URL for inclusion in that search system’s catalogue. Some search and directory systems have a facility for the web manager to provide information about their site as a part of the submission process. The latter effectively constitutes another source of metadata (although only for the specific search or directory system to which the site URL is being submitted) and so the same care should be taken with the precision of any information entered in this way as with the creation of Dublin Core metadata.

Search engine and directory registration (or submission) can be done in one of two ways:

* The organisation undertakes the registering process.
* The organisation’s web design company/agency undertakes the registering process.

There are many different search facilities on the web and registering can be laborious and repetitive, so it is often advisable to have an external organisation to take responsibility for this task.

It can take anything up to several months from the time of submitting your website’s URL to a search engine or directory and the site appearing in that system’s catalogue.

Care should be taken with the use of automated services that offer to submit website URLs to multiple search engines. The operators of some search engines decline to accept registrations from such services. Some other purported such services are just an out-and-out scam.

Remember that not everyone uses the same search facility. The more services that the organisation is registered with, the better the chances are of reaching the largest audience. For websites containing content aimed at a specialist audience, it is often worth searching for directory services designed to serve the specialism at issue and registering your content with them.

If your organisation changes its operating name, website URL or its structure, it will be necessary to repeat the entire registration process again. Otherwise, it is likely the result of a search will be a broken link.