Search Engine Submission Myths
Much unnecessary noise is made about search engine submission. It is so easy that we include it with our standard client engagements, although it's usually not necessary. Here we present the most common search engine submission myths.
Myth #1: You Must Submit Your Site to Be Indexed
Most search engines, particularly the major ones, follow links from one site to other sites to find new material and to assess the importance of sites by how many other sites link to them. If your site has links from other web sites that have already been indexed, chances are good that it will eventually be listed. This method is typically much faster than free submission, which can take months.
Myth #2: You Must Resubmit Your Site Periodically as your Content Changes
Most search engines will keep your site in their index unless they have very good reasons to believe that it no longer exists (such as not being available for weeks). In addition, they return to your site periodically to look for new content and adjust their cache and ranking.
Myth #3: Resubmitting Your Site Helps Your Ranking
Resubmitting has no effect on your ranking.
Myth #4: You Must Submit Every Page of Your Site
Search engines index your site by following links within it. If you have sufficient links to the pages on your site and your site isn't too large or "deep" (many levels of menus and/or folders), your entire site is likely to be indexed.
Myth #5: Paid Inclusion Affects Your Site's Ranking
The major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Teoma, Ask, etc.) claim that paid inclusion programs do not affect site ranking, and there is no evidence to contradict these claims. Some sites, most notably Yahoo!/Inktomi, have offered paid inclusion programs that expedited your site's inclusion, sometimes cutting time-to-list from months to hours. However these programs almost always specifically stated that rankings were not affected.
The popularity of paid inclusion programs has been steadily declining because of the risk of being perceived as compromising search engine objectivity.
