Google
Google is undoubtedly the top dog of search engines and a decent listing here is without doubt, at the time of writing, one of the keys to the success of a site. Listings in Google are free, although you can pay for AdWords to get immediate traffic. Google will usually take up to a month to get your site listed, and it appears the best way to do so is through the Google bot (spider) picking up on your link from another site, spidering (indexing) your site content and adding it to their database. The Google database is updated at the end/beginning of each month, commonly known as the "Google Dance" as this is when the major shake up of the database occurs. You can add your URL here to Google but as it's important to get links in it's advisable to add your site to dmoz and even our own store listing. We recommend avoiding link farms and be wary of companies guaranteeing instant search engine success.

Google appears to rate sites on a number of aspects, one of the important ones being the "quality" of in-bound links eg. a link from Microsoft.com being far more interesting than one from your neighbor (unless you live next to Bill Gates). Your importance in Google is measured as "page rank" - to find out the page rank of a site you'll need to download Google's tool bar. Here is a very general and unordered list of what Google is believed to look for on your page:

• Quality incoming links (preferably using your keywords in the text)
• Keywords in the title
• Keywords in the meta description
• Keywords in the main body of text
• Keywords in the ALT information
• Keywords in the URL
• Descriptive text links within the site
• Text in <H1> tags

It's important not to overdo things, avoid trying to trick Google, study high ranking competitor sites without ripping them off and above all have patience.

Google adwords

You can get into Google immediately through their adword program, rather than trying to explain it here, you're best getting the information from the horse's mouth. The great thing about adwords is that they will get your site advertised on Google immediately, you can also pay for keywords that your site is not showing up on, but keep a close eye on what they are costing you and read the information on optimizing your ads.

Yahoo

At the time of writing the cost of inclusion is $299 - this should get you into the yahoo directory, and in turn a link for Google to pick up on - all in all, probably worth it for an ecommerce site but not as important as it was in the past.

To add your site to Yahoo, find the category that best suits your needs and click on the "Suggest a Site" link at the bottom of the page - make sure you read Yahoo's guidelines before submitting.

Altavista

Again, not as important as it was a couple of years ago but still a widely used search engine. You can add your site here for free but for a quicker and guaranteed listing you will have to pay $39 - more information here.

Looksmart

Submitting to Looksmart is worth the investment if you want to get a listing in the MSN directory amongst other places, there's a set up of fee of $49 and then a charge of $0.15 per click - more information can be found here.

Overture

Overture is one of the major players in pay per click - like Google adwords it's a great way to target your audience and in the same vein it can work out expensive so it's important to do your research and check out the competition. With Overture you bid on the price of your keywords and a well targeted campaign can prove very successful - for more information take a look here, and remember that a top three listing is beneficial.

Other search engines and directories

Here's a list of other places to submit your site, some are free and some are paid inclusions - it's also worth doing a search to find directories of sites that are industry related or regional, but again avoid using free for all link farms - you are likely to get more spam than trade, and may even be penalised by the major players.

• Inktomi (paid via Overture)
• All the web (free + paid)
• Lycos (paid)
• Teoma / Ask Jeeves (paid)
• Open Directory (free)

Please let us know if you find any broken links or price changes. We try to keep our information updated regularly and of course appreciate any feedback.

We have more information on optimizing your site for search engines and our own search engine friendly features.