Submissions: Snake Oil

One of the top questions I get from well-intentioned new site owners concerns search engine submissions.

“I got an e-mail from a company that says they will submit me to 181 search engines for $(small amount of money). Should I do it?”

Truly, these people mean well. They see a low price tag and think/hope there might be value in it.

I always end up having to crush them. Assuming a $35 submission fee, that’s between 8 and 10 delicious gourmet schmancy coffee drinks. Mmm, caffeine.

Submission to the top 3 search engines — Google, Yahoo, and MSN — is technically unnecessary, as they’re all crawler-based, but if it makes you feel good, it can be done while drinking one of the abovementioned caffeinated treats. Yum. I actually tend to recommend submitting to MSN, because they’ve been totally irregular about indexing some of the sites I’m associated with even when we submit. Ask only recently started allowing submission, rounding out the top 4 properties.

Then, let’s look at Nielsen’s list of the top 10 search referring properties in the US, June edition. Pretty much everything in the 6 remaining entrants in the top 10 have some relationship or data feed from the top 4. So, with the top 4, you’re really probably reaching into about 96.5% of households.

So, what to do with those other 7-9 coffee drinks? I typically recommend making a coffee date with your web traffic reports, once a week, for 7-9 weeks with the rest of the money you saved by not using a submissions service. Check your referring sites and URLs. See if you see any chances for inbound link building. Get all happy inside if your search referrals start going up. Be a coffee achiever.