On at least one web hosting web site the company lists “Submission of your Web site to the Google search engine” but only for their higher-priced web hosting packages. I thought Google decided for themselves what to include, and I thought it was pretty much everything in the universe.
It is a scam to charge extra for a Google listing?
Almost scam. Maybe just taking advantage of the ignorant. They’re providing a service, but anyone can submit their site to Google. It’s not hard.
No-one, however, can guarantee just how or where google will list it, they have very strict and secret algorithms that determine this, in order to prevent the cheating and fixing that some internet sharks claim they can do.
I suspect that ISPs hope to suggest that by getting them to do the submission they’ll somehow do a better job of it, i.e. it will appear nearer the top of searches. But, really, the only thing that’ll make a difference is the quality of your web site and how many people use and link to it.
Google does have Pay-Per-Click sponsored ads that are always on top or on a sidebar for each and every page you look at. Listing yourself is free. Listing there is not free. Optimum listing with the correct keywords or metatags is free if you know what you’re doing- and costly if you try to go without.
And requires that you do the Google dance every month to keep up with their changing algorithms.
/highjack
Doesanybody know where FutileGesture’s signature quote came from? That is a great line?
/highjack
NotBob13: From The Aftermyth of War in Beyond the Fringe, with Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller (and Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett).
I tried and tried to get my website listed on Yahoo! - it took at least five attempts, over a year or so. Eventually they did do it - after I’d made some frame issues work ok for Netscape as well as IE.
Google picked it up much earlier. The trick I found was first getting listed in the Open Directory Project - http://www.dmoz.org
I don’t think Google uses keywords or metatags to any great degree. Certainly not for ranking. They were initially designed to allow for searching and indexing, but very quickly became abused. You’d get pages listing entire dictionaries in their keywords, including common keywords that bore no relation to the page’s content or commercial pages including other’s tradenames. Consequently they quickly fell from favour with search engines.
Seriously, Google know what they are doing. You can try playing the system but it won’t get you very far for very long. Nothing beats good, well organised, content.
Funny/sad story:
The needlepoint store under my feet decided to go online. The owner paid for the website, had it setup, and paid one of the “search specialists” to get the site up in the rankings. That person did their job, and their site showed up #1 or #2 in the rankings for the relevant terms. The owner was going to start taking online orders in a couple weeks.
Then Google changed their algorithm. The site plummetted out of the first 10. The search engine guy said “yeah, its because Yahoo bought Google” ??? and wanted more money to make the site go back up.
Google knows what they’re doing.
Yahoo did not acquire Google, but they do use Google’s search algorithms now.
I know that Yahoo didn’t buy Google, but this guy said that it was. Heck, I’ve heard from people that every company bought every other company and then you find out that they just signed a cooperative marketing agreement or were on the same press release.