Search Engine and Directory Submission: Automated, Manual, or Not at All? - Confirmation and Updates
(Page 4 of 5 )
In view of what has been said above, it is important to ask “What kind of confirmation do you get when you make a submission to a site?” Does the software show you the page returned by the engine when a successful submission has been made? If not you might quite rightly be suspicious that your page has not been properly submitted or that you've made a submission to a “vapour engine”.
For an individual who is doing a one-time submission of his site to search engines, updates are not a major issue. For the web developer who makes submissions on a regular basis for different clients, it is quite a different matter. We all know how frequently websites change, so if you are purchasing software it is important to know how frequently the database is updated and how long the updates are supplied for free.
The situation is analogous to using anti-virus software. It doesn't matter how good the anti-virus software is if the virus database is outdated. Changes to the database of engines may become necessary for a variety of reasons but primarily because of changes to submission requirements. Most packages allow you to download updates as they become available, again in much the same way as you would update a virus definition file. The better software packages will inform you of the changes made.
Most software packages will allow you to print a report of submissions made. Forwarding this information to your clients is good customer relations but only if the information is reliable and up-to-date.
A Word of Caution
As a result of automated submissions you will doubtless receive some unwanted email. I won't dwell on the irony of this situation other than to say “He who lives by the sword...”
As part of the submission process, many sites require a valid email address. In some cases, a site will not be added if there is no response to a confirming email. An awkward situation can develop if you are adding a listing on behalf of a client and this client starts receiving spam. One solution is to set up a temporary email address that is used for the short term or an address that redirects emails to one of your own accounts. In this way legitimate confirmations can be handled and spam need not reach your client.
Next: Conclusion >>
More Website Submission Articles
More By Peter Lavin
/ 41 
