Submit your website to thousands of Search Engines -- only $49.95!

Sorry, that's not us, but you've seen it before haven't you?

There's a pervasive myth among some  webmasters, that submitting your website to thousands of search engines will result in thousands of visitors and a potential increase of new business. This flawed concept has contributed to the Internet's demise and spawned a new cottage industry comprised of technology mercenaries and marketing charlatans. It is also, along with spam, responsible for the tremendous cost escalation for maintaining a successful Internet presence.

To fully understand the problem you must realize this type of hype is perpetrated by those who should know better or by those who should at least be honest and forthcoming about the consequences of this sort of foolishness. If you do not value your time and you are not serious about your business -- go right ahead… But, remember you will pay dearly for this type of stupidity.

If this idea is suggested by any sort of Internet professional you need to question both their intelligence and integrity immediately. And, if you attempt to do this on your own without knowing the full ramifications, you will indeed be sorry.

The problem is not that submitting a website to thousands of "search engines" will not result in an increase the number of hits, traffic, and visitors to your site. If done correctly submitting, your website to selectively chosen search engines and directories can increase the probability that your site will be visited. However, there is a major fallacy in this thinking.

Submitting a website to search engines and directories is only one facet of cost-effective Internet Marketing, but compliments your marketing efforts. And by no means, does more, mean better. Especially as related to the Internet more typically means the dilution of effectiveness. With 7.3 million pages added to the Net each day there is no way that your website will be found in a consistent reliable manner unless you know exactly what you are doing. Thinking that you are going to outdo your competition by playing the search engine game is absolutely ridiculous. The odds of probability are stacked against you and those who are controlling the game have no intent of allowing you to win. Winning by accident at search engine positioning is far worse than the odds of winning in Vegas at any type of gambling casino. And if you should be lucky for any length of time you will be eliminated from the game.

If you want to be successful on the Web you need to have realistic expectations and a long term philosophy or you will fall prey to the scam artists who are extremely proficient at fraud and deception. I am not talking about a couple bad apples; I mean major alliances of practitioners of fraud and collusion. These alliances have billion dollar budgets and as an individual company you can not possibly compete.

If you stumble around the Net long enough you will find information described as search engine secrets or "Magic Pages". And, of course someone wants to make money from the tricks they may have discovered. They give you a "money back guarantee" on a sliding time schedule only giving a full refund after a year. Too bad they won't be around in a year, or, at the least changing their name. However, don't deceive yourself into believing that these are of much value since thousands if not hundreds of thousands of others may also be privy to this information even if it was legitimate If they work at all they will only work up to the point when the deck is again reshuffled. And, if these really were true search engine secrets wouldn't the search engine owner get a court order to halt the illicit use of their intellectual property or change the algorithms used? 

Another thing to consider is that, the implied usefulness of some search engines is highly overstated and extremely overrated. Isn't the whole purpose of searching, the need to find what you are looking for? I don't know about you, but I am not convinced that is the intention, especially if you analyze the uselessness of the garbage information resulting from a search engine query. While a search can be fun if you have nothing better to do than surf the web for miscellaneous information, however if you are looking to gain quick access to consistently accurate and useful business information you are wasting your time. A search engine isn't designed for that purpose. I believe the real search engine secrets is just this: nobody directly involved with search engines is willing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Don't even think about wasting your time with the concept known as FFA or free-for-all links sites. These are the majority of the types of sites that are included in these submissions to thousands of search engines. For any type of serious business they are virtually useless and will spawn more junk email than you can possibly imagine. If you want to get on many hundreds of junk mail SPAM lists this is the place to go or refer to your enemies. Serious traffic to your website is a ridiculously remote possibility. These sites are put up for the sole purpose of self-promotion and the selling of banner ads. As far as I am concerned, most FFA sites have no redeemable value since most visitors to these sites are only interested in getting free links and, therefore, not interested in what you have to sell. And anyone who advertises on any of these FFA sites needs a lot more than quality marketing assistance.

There are many more reasons for not wasting your time, money, or effort to entertain the thought of submitting your website to thousands of search engines, but it would take up too much time to list all the details and reasons.

Hopefully I have given you sufficient reason to delay any impulsive temptation to do something costly or damaging.

Your time and money are better spent on hiring the services of a professional who knows exactly what and why they are doing what they do.

To have a successful Internet presence your company needs to be found...period. And that takes an expert, unless you have a lot of free time on your hands.