Search Engines and Directories

Note: This list is really out of date. I may just remove this page entirely. I need to go through it and see if any of this is worth keeping. Please take this page with a very large grain of salt.

Other Resources

This page covers submission services, submission software, and other tools and information. Most of the resources on this page are intended for companies designing commercial web pages. However, a lot of them have their uses in promoting personal pages and information resources (like this page.)

Please note that I'm just listing these resources. A listing here doesn't necessarily mean that I recommend the product or resource. If I've used one of these, I will tell you my experiences with it. Otherwise, you're on your own!

Oh, and some of the software and services on this page charge for their use. I've indicated costs where I am aware of them. If I doesn't say there's a cost, it's probably free.

Submission Services

Free Services

• AddMe submits your site to around 30 search engines and directories. The exact number changes, since the search engines and directories are always changing how they do submissions. The current list of what's covered is at the bottom of the first page. It takes me about two hours to get through this list.
• The free version of Submit It only submits to six search engines, but they're good ones. If you don't have much time, this would be a good one to use.

Paid Services

Submission Software

• Submit Wolf has a free trial version. You will have to pay to use the full version. I haven't used this program, but it's been around for a while and has a good reputation. Your call.

HTML Analysis Software

Page Position Testers - Free

Page position testers show you where your web page comes up in the search engine listings. You specify your site URL and the keywords that you want to search for. There are online services as well as downloadable software. Most of these offer a limited version for free, with the full service available only to paying customers.

Online Services

• PositionAgent has a free service that displays its results in a web page. You can check a single web site's position on up to eight search engines and directories at once. It will check your entire site, or just a single page. The results page gives the page number and position of the result for each search engine.
• ScoreCheck allows you to check a single keyword on one or two web sites. It will check on six search engines. The results are delivered to you via email.
• The Informant allows you to check up to three keywords on any one of four search engines. You can check up to five web sites or pages at a time. The results are provided online. It will automatically repeat the check at intervals and email you when a new report is ready.
• Not really a page position tester, but Search Engine Watch has a page on how to find your site in each of several search engines. Position testers can only look at the results returned by the search engine, and most of these limit the results to the top 100 or so. If you aren't up that high in their listings, this s the only way to tell if the search engines have listed you at all.

Page Position Testers - Paid

Online Services

• The paid version of PositionAgent allows you to monitor up to five sites per keyword. Analysis can be scheduled at regular intervals. The reports are said to contain more information than the free version gives you, and can be emailed to you or viewed online.
  Cost: US$10/month, 6-month signup for the cheap package. Other packages cost more. It's unclear what these packages include.
• The paid version of ScoreCheck allows you to scan up to four web sites at the same time, and uses up to 15 search engines. They also store the results as web pages, so you can go back and compare the results to previous tests.
  Cost: US$20 for 12 tokens. They don't bother to explain what a token is, or what you can use them for. There are lower prices if you buy more tokens at a time.
• The paid version of InterNetGain supposedly gives you much more information than the free version. It also lists deficiencies in your page and suggests corrective action.
  Cost: US$49.95 for 6 months.

Software

• WebPosition Gold (See below)

Other Useful Stuff

The Keyword Extractor finds and lists all of the keywords in a web page. It will also attempt to apply a weighting scheme similar to those used by some of the major search engines. It gives you a summary of your keywords and where it found each one. A great tool for checking your work after you've tuned a page, and it's fast.

This program could also be useful if you are having trouble coming up with a list of keywords for your pages.

Multi-Purpose Software

• The TopDog Search Engine Analyzer/Submitter allows you to check your page ranking on around 200 search engines worldwide (231 as of this update.) It also allows you to submit your page to a smaller number of them (currently 137).

  The free trial version limits your testing to five major search engines. It produces a listing showing your page's position on each of the search engines, and does so very quickly.

  The program requires you to provide a lot of personal information to "register" it. It supposedly has a privacy policy, but doesn't allow you to read it. If you don't want to provide all that information, you have to crash the program to quit. If you really think that you want to use this program, you have my permission to lie. A lot. You'll probably want to lie about your email address as well - they send advertising emails at the rate of about one a week.
  Cost: US$179 includes one year of free updates, which you'll need. Further updates cost US$59.

• Web Position Gold has a number of features, including a page checker, page position tester, HTML editor, and page submitter. The free trial version is complete but time-limited. It does about everything that you could want, and produces a bewildering variety of data and reports. Making sense out of all that data is difficult - the program doesn't help you much there. Customer service is also no help - they never responded to my emails.
  Cost: US$149 supports up to five web sites. US$349 supports unlimited web sites, and allegedly has more features.

More Information

The following sources will give you much more information about search engines and directories. Like most of the programs and services on this page, they are directed towards the designers of commercial pages.

• Search Engine Watch has a huge amount of information about search engines, from tips on using them to ways to improve your page position to gossip about how search engines work. Highly recommended.
• Search Engine Guide is another page containing nearly everything you ever wanted to know about search engines. A great resource.