Notes on finding the top search engines and how to get your site linked into the top search engines.

The search engine landscape continuously changes. The top three are Google, Bing (Microsoft's latest), and Yahoo. There are others, and I've noted the ones to worry about generally to ensure you are listed. There are also the special directories that are worth tracking down and getting your site listed in them so that you have more links to your pages. Don't underestimate this. The process is one that can take several weeks to months. And the more active your site is, the more likely your site will be crawled regularly.

Useful Links:

• Top 10 Search Engines
• Top 100 Alternative Search Engines
• Major Search Engines and Directories

Top Search Engines:

• Google - Submit
• Yahoo - Submit
• Bing.com - Submit
• Ask.com - self-discovers from links on other sites (like DMOZ)
• AOL - users DMOZ for self-discovery, draws from Google, too

Others:

• DMOZ - find the right category, click their Submit URL link; hand culled, important!!!
• AltaVista - now uses Yahoo
• Netscape - uses AOL, enhanced by Google
• Lycos - No submission feature, but feeds off DMOZ, Google, Ask and others
• HotBot - uses Lycos
• Fast (AlltheWeb) - uses Yahoo
• Snap - powered by other feeds

Remember, it will take days to weeks for all the search engines to have your site indexed. Best is to continue to have pertinent links to your site around the net as well as having well formed pages with good solid content. Nothing will do better than that overall. And make you content active.