Do you get emails offering to submit your site to hundreds of search engines and directories? Whilst it might sound good it’s really unnecessary and can do more harm than good.
Submitting your site to hundreds of search engines
There are only four true search engines: Google, Yahoo, ASK and BING (formerly MSN/Live). Every other search site takes their results from the four mentioned above. So, if your site appears in one of the four, it will appear in the search engine results pages, known as SERPs, on any other search engine site.
Submitting your site to hundreds of directories
The only directories that are going to do you any good are those related to your niche. If you’re selling hand crafted toys, a gardening directory isn’t going to help you. However, a directory of hand crafted toys would be perfect. And a directory of natural, non-toxic toys may be a good match.
Having your site listed in totally unrelated directories doesn’t help. If you have two or three high-quality sites linking to you and all the other links are from spammy, unrelated directories, those links will reflect poorly on your site. It’s better to focus on high-quality links from sites that rank well in the search engines.
