John Cletheroe's
PC and Internet Hints

Web Page Creation Hints and Resources - Search Engine Registration

Having created and uploaded your web site, the next job is to register it with the major search engines. While most of these claim to follow your internal links and automatically index all your pages when you only register one page, in practice this happens very slowly, very occasionally and in a very restricted manner, if at all. However, if you register too many pages then not only will you have a lot of work to do but the search engines may think that you are spamming and delete the entries for all your pages.

It's probably best to register a few pages at a time, check after a week or so and register a few more.

Currently (April 1998), Infoseek is the most user-friendly search engine as regards registration - you have to register every page but it tells you this and indexes pages almost immediately. HotBot and Northern Light also behave well, automatically indexing additional pages over a period of time. Alta Vista can be very capricious. Excite, Lycos and Yahoo are a waste of time as regards registration.

A major factor with search engines is to ensure that the title and opening words of each page are carefully chosen so as to increase the chances of your page being found when someone is searching for its subject matter. The <META> tag is a nicety, but probably not all that important.

The following table provides some information regarding registering pages with several of the best known search engines:

Alta Vista
Add URL
In theory you only need to register one page.
In practice you need to register every page.
Pages normally appear on the index after two or three days.
Registering more than eight pages a day may cause Alta Vista to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages.
You can check which pages are indexed using url:freespace.virgin.net/joe.bloggs
Pages are always added to the main Alta Vista site, regardless of which site you are using.
Some pages are sometimes eventually copied to some of the satellite Alta Vista sites.

HotBot
Add URL
In theory you only need to register one page.
In practice you need to register every page.
Pages normally appear on the index after a week or two.
Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause HotBot to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages.
You can check which pages are indexed using the domain parameter in SuperSearch, but you only enter a server name, not a directory. Therefore you also need to include a unique word or phrase on every page in order to perform a search.

Infoseek
Add URL
Infoseek's registration facility is only operative during weekdays.
You need to register every page (Infoseek is unique in telling you this).
Pages normally appear on the index after five minutes or so, which makes operation extremely convenient
Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause Infoseek to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages.
You can check which pages are indexed using url:freespace.virgin.net/joe.bloggs

Northern Light
Add URL
In theory you only need to register one page.
In practice you need to register every page.
Pages normally appear on the index after two or three weeks.
Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause Northern Light to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages.
There is no way of checking which of your pages are indexed unless they contain a unique word or phrase on every page which you can search for.

If your site has a significant number of pages then you probably need to keep a record of which pages you have submitted to each search engine and which have been checked as appearing on their indexes. You need to recheck that pages appear on the indexes every so often as most search engines "lose" pages from their indexes frequently.

As with all the other pages on this personal web site, all the information on this page is solely the opinion of the author, who has no connection whatsoever with any of the companies and organisations mentioned other than as an actual or potential customer.

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Most recently modified 25-Mar-01

Alta Vista Add URL	In theory you only need to register one page. In practice you need to register every page. Pages normally appear on the index after two or three days. Registering more than eight pages a day may cause Alta Vista to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages. You can check which pages are indexed using url:freespace.virgin.net/joe.bloggs Pages are always added to the main Alta Vista site, regardless of which site you are using. Some pages are sometimes eventually copied to some of the satellite Alta Vista sites.
HotBot Add URL	In theory you only need to register one page. In practice you need to register every page. Pages normally appear on the index after a week or two. Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause HotBot to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages. You can check which pages are indexed using the domain parameter in SuperSearch, but you only enter a server name, not a directory. Therefore you also need to include a unique word or phrase on every page in order to perform a search.
Infoseek Add URL	Infoseek's registration facility is only operative during weekdays. You need to register every page (Infoseek is unique in telling you this). Pages normally appear on the index after five minutes or so, which makes operation extremely convenient Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause Infoseek to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages. You can check which pages are indexed using url:freespace.virgin.net/joe.bloggs
Northern Light Add URL	In theory you only need to register one page. In practice you need to register every page. Pages normally appear on the index after two or three weeks. Registering more than fifty pages a day may cause Northern Light to think that you are spamming and remove many of your pages. There is no way of checking which of your pages are indexed unless they contain a unique word or phrase on every page which you can search for.