A lot of people feel that submitting a website to Google is a specialized task that requires the hands and tools of an expert. If you are one of them, then you are misinformed. If you have acquired this information from a business or a company on the internet, then maybe it has something to sell to you. Maybe, something on the lines of a link submission service or an SEO package. Now here’s the deal. Submitting your website to Google is as easy as uploading a file to an online server. (You will know what I mean if you have ever used an online file hosting service like Rapid Share). Sounds easy? Is easier. Another huge percentage of webmasters are confused about the right time to submit a website to Google. 90% wait till the website is developed and up and running before submitting it to Google and this delays the indexing of the website by almost 5 to 6 months. The remaining 10% are the companies we see on top in the search results pages. How can this be possible? Read on to find more.
Google Submission FAQs
I have created a set of FAQs related to website submission. Though the focus is on Google, which according to me is the biggest and the best search engine out there, I have also mentioned some other websites which are equally good and worth a glance.
Q. When do you submit a website to Google?
R. The right time to submit a website to Google is the minute you register a domain. This should be done irrespective of the content, the hosting, the future business plan etc. “Hey, I haven’t even bought a hosting plan yet”. So what? Do not wait. The reason behind this is that a website always takes time to get indexed in Google. In ordinary circumstances, you can expect it to get indexed in about 10 to 12 weeks time (The time may differ). Add another 6 months for your website to start getting ranked based on the kind of SEO strategy you have chosen. Now that’s almost 9 months we are talking about. If you submit your domain to Google, the minute you register it, then you can utilize these 9 months to get the business plan in order, execute it, create a well designed website, write the content for it and start online marketing and search engine optimization. Besides all these factors, you have the Google Sandbox to counter.
Q. What is the Google Sandbox?
R. A few years ago, some webmasters noticed that their websites were not getting ranked in Google despite them using the best SEO strategies. Almost everything about the website and the SEO strategy was right. But the website would not get indexed in Google. After much research and speculation, they came to the conclusion that Google had made some modifications to their search algorithms and introduced a set of filters called Google Filters. The Google Sandbox is one of these filters. Each Google filter has a distinct function. The function of the sandbox is to withhold the indexing and the ranking of a new website until Google determines its credibility. So every new website that is submitted to Google gets sandboxed for a certain period of time.
Q. How do I submit my website to Google? Should I hire paid services?
R. Do not spend money out of your pocket for things that you can do on your own. All that you have to do is visit this URL:
http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html
You will then be asked to describe your website or domain name in a few words. Think of a few words that best describes your future business plan and click on submit.
Q. Will this guarantee that my website will be indexed and I will get high rankings in search engines?
R. Unfortunately, the answer is no. This is only an inclusion into the Google directory. It means that the Google spiders or robots which scan new websites every now and then will scan your website on their next outing on the World Wide Web. Everything from there on, including your position in search results pages depends on the website design, the kind of content on the website, the quality of back links and your online marketing strategies.
Q. Do I have to submit to other search engines? If so, which are they?
R. Google itself is such a gargantuan search engine that almost 65% of web users use it to find what they want. Also it is firmly believed that once Google indexes your site, the rest will follow automatically. It’s follow the leader. About 25% use 10 other search engines. This means that these 11 search engines cover almost 90% of traffic on the web. Now that’s a lot of traffic. I am sure it will suffice for your business needs. Here is a list of the remaining 10 search engines.
- Yahoo
- MSN
- Alta Vista
- Netscape
- Fast / All the Web
- Ask Jeeves / Teoma
- Hotbot
- Lycos
- AOL
- Look Smart
Now, let me also add that some of these search engines overlap in their submissions. For example, submission to Alta vista is covered by Yahoo submissions and submission to Netscape is covered by Google and so on. Also a few search engines offer separate free as well as paid submission services.
I hope I have helped you to clear off a lot of doubts regarding submission to search engines. Maybe I helped you save a dollar or two. If you want to learn more about SEO, Google and related subjects, then browse through my articles below.