altavista search engine optimization

Submission URL:
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url
Submission Limit per Day: 25 (to be on the safe side)
How long does it take to index a page? A few months
At times, Excite will only accept the main page of your site through their submission process. Other times, it will accept interior or doorway page submissions. There's no doubt about the fact that Excite definitely prefers main pages over interior/doorway pages, however.

Therefore, make use of visible links to all of your important pages off the main page of your site, and give the engine something to index.

With Excite, there's an unwritten "rule" that generally only 25 pages from a domain can be in the index. Of course, like most search engine rules, this one is broken all the time. However, don't be surprised if your site is limited to having 25 URLs in Excite's index.

Because of this rule, pick and choose the URLs yourself by making use of robots.txt files.

Submit only 10 URLs a day to Excite.

To check to see if your pages are in the index, enter the URL without the http:// prefix, like this:

www.myveryownwebsite.com/webresources.html

You can also search for the root domain to find many pages from the same site at once. Enter your root URL, such as:

www.myveryownwebsite.com

Submission URL:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Submission Limit per Day: 10
How long does it take to index a page? 1-2 months

With Google's supplying Yahoo!'s supplemental index, submitting to Google has become even more important.

Submit all of your important pages to Google. However, with Google's unique way of indexing, your links should be picked up by this engine with no problems. But, why take a chance - submit your important pages.

You can submit up to 10 URLs to Google a day and be safe. Google doesn't have a number per se but 10 per day is a safe number.

With Google, be sure to have other sites link to your Google pages, or those pages may not be picked up in the index.

To check to see if your pages are in the index, search for your domain name like this:

www.yourdomainname.com

Then, click on "Find web pages that contain the term." From there, you can choose "Search within results" to narrow down the search to particular pages.

Submission URL: www.canada.com/search/web/addurl.asp
Submission Limit per Day: 50
How long does it take to index a page? 2 weeks
Note: Your best bet for submitting to the Inktomi engines is to go through their pay inclusion program.

Inktomi supplies results to HotBot, Canada.com, iWon, GoTo, MSN Search, and many more search services. To get your site into the Inktomi engine faster, use their pay inclusion program.

Be sure to submit all important pages of your site to HotBot. Try submitting the same page using different variations of the page. For example:

http://www.HereIAm.com
http://HereIAm.com
http://www.HereIAm.com/index.html

You may find that your sites using the "www" are ranked slightly higher than those without the "www."

When you submit a site to Inktomi, you may have noticed that it may be appear in the index for a month or two and then be dropped? Inktomi will analyze a page for inclusion in their index. It is dropped because Inktomi has not seen it come up in a search and has determined that it doesn't have any value."

So, if the page doesn't get accessed through a search engine, it will be dropped from the Inktomi index?

Yes for Inktomi, no for AltaVista. Inktomi has two indexes.

Have you also noticed that your rankings fluctuate in HotBot or other engines? Rankings will alter by the hour with some engines. If you lose the spot for more than two weeks, you should be concerned.

To check to see if your pages are in the index, use their Check URL form:

http://www.hotbot.com/help/checkurl.asp

Or, visit HotBot's main page and choose the "Advanced Search" button, which is on the left-hand side of the page. The SuperSearch page will appear.

Find the Location/Domain box toward the middle of the page, and enter your domain without the "http://www" prefix in the domain box. You can choose other variables, such as the page depth and the number of search results you'll be shown. Click on Search.

Submission URL for Lycos: http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html
Submission URL for FAST: http://alltheweb.com/addurl.html
Submission Limit per Day: 50
How long does it take to index a page? 20-40 days (in FAST)

With both Lycos and FAST, you can safety submit all of your important pages, even though both engines are "deep crawlers" and should find the links on their own.

Try omitting the "www" when submitting your pages to Lycos.

To check to see if your pages are in the index, search for your root domain, such as:

thisismysite.com

Some of your pages will usually be listed. If not, search again, but leave off any suffixes, such as ".com" or ".edu" like this: thisismysite

Submission URL: www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html
Submission Limit per Day: 50
How long does it take to index a page? 2-4 weeks

Though Northern Light prefers that you submit just one page to the engine, you can submit your interior and doorway pages, and you should.

However, as with all engines these days, make good use of hidden links on your main page to other important pages of your site.

To check to see if your pages are in the index, search for your domain like:

yourwebsite.com

Then, choose More Results from this Site.

In conclusion:

When submitting to the search engines, play it safe. Don't submit over and over again, and look at each engine's submission guidelines carefully. If you're going to err, err on the side of being conservative.

The moral of the story is, don't trick them. Give them content.