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I recently received an email telling me my Emerald Bay Records web site was not listed on some search engines. (Google admits they get these emails as well.) This company said they would help me build a better "web presence" by submitting my site to over 600,000 search engines every month, the highest number I've ever seen.

This was an interesting offer since I already have a number of page one rankings for this web site on Yahoo and Google. My site also has a Google PageRank of 4, which is considered quite respectable. And they were going to help me how? The email said their excellent service would "largely increase the accesses of your website." Gosh, they didn't say they could bring me more traffic. So what would I being paying for?

First, the 600,000 number seemed a bit extravagant to me. Let's see. Google indexes 8 billion web pages. If the average site was 8 pages (probably very low), that would make a billion web sites. So divide a billion web sites by 600,000 and you get a search engine for every 1700 web sites. I guess that fits because part of their company name is "miracle."

But wait. The fine print qualified the 600,000 search engines found in big print to search engines and directories. That's a relief. I can't believe there are that many search engines. About 90% of all searches take place on only 4 or 5 search engines. Google does 51% of them, Yahoo does half of that, MSN does a quarter, and so on down the line. If the half dozen visitors a month you might get from the small engines makes a difference on your site, you are in big trouble. Spend your time optimizing for the big boys where it will pay off.

So what is the difference between a search engine and a directory? Search engines have bots or spiders, programs that actively search the web for web sites to index. If you have a link pointing to your web site, the search engines will follow the link and include you in their index. Ooops, that would mean you don't really need to submit to search engines at all. But let's ignore that fact for now.

Directories show collections of web site grouped into categories. The only way to get listed with a directory is to submit because they won't come looking for you. But you must submit to the correct category or you may not be included. Some directories specialize in certain subjects. Your dating service web site won't belong in the fishing directory where I submitted my Utah Fish Finder web site. Automated submissions to directories often fail for these reasons.

I decided to go to this "miracle" web site and see where they came up with the 600,000 number. They were kind enough to provide a small listing of sites they submit to. I was surprised to find the large number German sites. In Germany, 91% of all searches are on Google. Of course, many European and Asian countries were also represented. That's fine if you are shipping products overseas and don't mind dealing with customs and foreign exchange rates.

Other "directories" included link pages and FFA (free for all) sites. I don't consider these to be directories at all. They are often referred to as link farms and spam magnets. Get submitted here and your listing will probably be followed by a deluge of spam. This is not what I want to pay someone to do for me.

Ah, but this company does offer resubmitting every month. And the purpose is? Google says "it's NOT necessary to submit your site to Google in order to be included in our index." Submitting the same site over and over doesn't change your rankings. You must change your site for that to happen. Some companies will tell you resubmitting keeps the search engines from forgetting you. Computers never forget. Once you are indexed by a search engine, they will come back periodically to see if you have updated your site.

So why pay a monthly fee for submission services? I don't have a clue. You can submit your site to the major search engines in about 5 minutes. Submitting to a few quality directories can be helpful for your rankings, but these must be done by hand.

Don't get scammed by companies offering submission services. They won't do you any good. If no one is coming to your site, build a better site. Choose effective keywords and use them properly. Get other sites and directories to link to you. That will bring you more traffic.

--Rich Pulham