Validation and Promotion

Variety of Criteria

Different search engines use different criteria to evaluate your page. Features they look for may include:

• repetition of words about the topic throughout site;
• use of words about the topic in the title of pages or in headers;
• use of words about the topic in "keywords" <meta> tags;
• too much repetition of the word so that the search engine suspects "spamming";
• how many sites link to yours, indicating popularity

See the summary at Submit-It at http://www.submit-it.com/subfaq.htm for some tips about what various engines look for, or take time to read some of the guidelines at some of the search engines:

• AltaVista at http://www.altavista.com/av/content/ques_webmaster.htm
• Excite at http://www.excite.com/info/getting_listed/
• InfoSeek / Go Network at http://www.go.com/AddUrl?pg=Guidelines.html
• Yahoo at http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/addfaq.html

Some say it requires expensive, professional help to get a good ranking these days. Nonetheless, it is good to consider search engine criteria since it helps you design carefully.

How to Submit

Submit-It at http://www.submit-it.com/subfaq.htm has both a free and a paid service for submitting your web site to multiple search engines.

You can also submit your URL to the engines yourself:

• Alta Vista at http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=addurl
• Exicte at http://www.excite.com/info/add_url
• HotBot at http://www.hotbot.com/addurl.asp
• InfoSeek / Go Network at http://www.go.com/AddUrl?&pg=SubmitUrl.html (note that if you are submitting from geocities or similar large server they prefer an email; check the guidelines)
• Lycos at http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html
• Yahoohttp://www.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ (note that you need to fill out a comment form since they do not use the <meta> tag for "keywords")

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