Wondering which search engines and directories you should submit your website too? If so, this post is for you.

Submitting your website to a search engine is a rather simple process as it typically involves filling out a few form-fields, usually with a short description and the site's URL, and clicking a "submit" button. The outcome is that you've notified the search engine of your website so that it will visit, crawl, and index your pages.

Pretty simple stuff... right? Of course it is, but that's not the question that's currently residing on everyone's mind. The question that should have been asked is if it's even necessary for you, or a search engine marketer acting on your behalf, to submit your website to search engines. Well, is it?

In the past I would have said "yes, absolutely". However, today is a completely different story. I'm not going to lie and say that search engine submission is a necessary step in building a successful web presence... because its not. Search engines have improved greatly in their crawling abilities over the years, and possess the necessary elements to locate, crawl, and index a new website on their own and without your help. However, at the same time, I'm not going to say that submitting websites to search engines is completely worthless either, because there are definitely benefits in doing so. One, of course being, that it provides newer websites with an opportunity for a much faster inclusion into the engine's index.

I guess whether or not submitting to search engines is important really just depends on you, your business, and how quickly you want your website to rank. In my opinion, there are only 3 or 4 engines even worth submitting to, and in fact, most of the time submitting to one search engine could automatically get your site listed elsewhere as well... like Yahoo! for example. Submitting to Yahoo! automatically places you on AllTheWeb and AltaVista (remember them?).

Web directories, on the other-hand, are a completely different animal altogether. There are literally hundreds of thousands of directories that can be found online (hell, I even had one), and understanding which are worthy of your submission (and in most cases, your money) and which are not is a little difficult.

Unlike search engines, a directory does not have a "spider" that actively crawls the net. Instead, directories rely on site submissions to feed their index... meaning if you choose not to submit your website to directories than your site will never appear within one. And that's ok.

While it's true that a lack of directory-inclusions never hurt a website, directories can, however, help them. In most cases web directories are a great source of website traffic. Directories such as DMOZ, JoeAnt, and the Yahoo! Directory are great resources to many people, and having your website included within their listings could mean extra eye-balls for you. In addition, as a website owner you're probably already aware that having quality links point to you (meaning links from websites with relative information to yours) can DIRECTLY dictate how your website ranks within the major search engines. Submitting your website to key web directories is a great opportunity for you to attain those kinds of links.

For your benefit and for mine as well, I've created a "Search Engine and Directory Submission Guide" which features links and descriptions for many of today's major online search engines and directories... at least to those that I feel are most relevant. You can review this guide here:

http://www.karlribas.com/search-engine-submissions.htm

Enjoy!