HostMySite.com has always offered a Search Engine Submission with all of our hosting plans - it has the following details:

- submits to 500 search engines at once
- one time submission
- one time fee of $20
- expect results in 6 - 8 weeks
- no assurance of any particular ranking

This is a nice feature, however we often get clients inquiring about optimization and guaranteed ranking, which is something that we don't currently support. Has anyone had any luck with paid (or free) services that will do this?

Personally...

I've used the application that HMS uses (previous to my employment there) and never noticed any more traffic going to the sites that I submitted afterwords.

Search engine rankings do not come by forcing a SE to spider your site... search engine rankings come from having good content and LINKBACKS. Traffic is also taken into consideration, but not as much as linkbacks.

If you have 2 websites linking from other sites back to yours and your friends has 20, his is going to rank better most of the time. That's not always true, tho, because content and key word density plays a key part in that as well. However, with related and well documented content as well as linkbacks, you're SURE to do well.

Personally, IMHO, you're wasting your money with those submission "tools"... because even at the very least you can submit to the bigger and more important search engines for free

I agree 100% - Search engine submissions are a waste.

My customers always ask me "How can I get my page at the top of the search engines?"

I always tell them 3 ways...
#1 Sell a good product.
People that sell cr@p and try to make it look pretty on a website are still just selling cr@p. It will reflect in their business as a whole. Your website traffic will reflect the quality of your product - not the quality of your website.

#2 Have a lot of well formed & relavent content.
If you have information that people need and are going to use on your website, others will link to it. Rather than having just a picture of your product and a title with a price - have a verbose description of it. Add a few reviews or ratings of it - better yet allow your customers to leave reviews and comments on products so that other potential customers will be able to read their opinions, and not just manufacturer spin.

#3 Go and outright buy an ad for high placement.
If having search engine placement is that important to you, while you are spending money on your site, spend a little more and buy a few ads to drive business to the site. I usually offer discounts if people do this at the time of site creation, but I also tell them that if they do the first two, the high placement will come as a result and at no additional cost.

To answer your question directly - I have used one or two online free submission tools and one that came with a webstats analyzer program we were testing once awhile back. They were easy enough to use, but I just don't like the whole idea personally. Also, since some of hte search engines we were submitting to required contact info, I saw an influx of spam into the temp email accounts we set up...some of the search engines may be a little dubious...might be a good thing to have HMS do this for you if they can act as mediator and keep the spam away from you.

HMS's submission app is nothing special... it's an app that's readily available to anybody else that wants it. For that, no mediation is taking place and you're still subjected to the same consequences as doing it yourself. Hope I didn't give away anything unwanted.

Nothing unwanted, however you are a little wrong. When we submit personal information to our Search Engine Submission program we use a temp email address that no one uses - in the few cases where we accidentally used a clients address (I can think of about twice in 4 years) they saw the same influx of spam that Bobum referred to.

Bingo - it happened to us big time...having HMS as a proxy would be nice.
Some search engine companies can be pretty unscrupulous...unfortunately.

ah hah... nice. Well that is a nice start. In any event, I still stick to my original opinion of such services. Nothing against HMS or the service offered/provided... just personal opinion here.

you can have a pro company optimise your pages and use there purchase power for a bit higher rankings. But ones that just submit to engines is a waste, after all you really only need to be in google and the rest will index you. Jason at globalpromoter.com used to do a really good job and guaranteed a 10 placement and wasnt too expensive. LIke $600 for the first 6 months and $65 a month after.

Same goes with the submission software, several years ago I bought web position gold and after using it I took a huge crap in where I was placed..........

speaking of spam I have been getting like 30 of these dam emails a day (see below) and this email address is only used 1 place but seems like the spamming has really been picking up


Subj: is this spam??? OPEC warns oil rates wi|| continue to rise
Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2005 13:44:20 +0500
From: "Devin Mcneil" <xtnrrbmavla@honduras.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------
Time sensitive information for Investors and traders:

STOCK ALERT -

Updated: 4/O1/05 07:51 AM EST

Biogenerics LTD (BIGN) Announces Commencement of Dri||ing 0perations in Gas-Rich Formation.
The company's recent lucrative acquisition of Tyche Energy ,coup|ed with a joint venture with
Hydro Slotter Corp (a techno|ogy-driven company) has increased we|l production by up to 60O%.

BIGN st0ck Status -
Last Sa|e: O.83
Share Volume: 1090O


Investment Considerations:
- Oil prices are fluctuating at over $50 a barre| - all time high
- OPEC warns oi| rates will continue to rise
- BIGN st0ck continues to trend to new 52 week highs
- BIGN st0ck is positioned for growth due to recent 0i| and gas aquisitions & ventures
- BIGN Focuses Complete|y on the Domestic Oil & Gas Arena (Market Exceeds $1O Bil|ion)
- Domestic 0i| & Gas Sector Provide Immediate Opportunity to Garner Value
- BIGN is pursuing strategies to create shareholder value
- Company’s growth strategy is driven by M&A

Brian Kel|ey, CEO of Biogenerics,says:
"Dri||ing in such a rich area of gas reserves represents another mi|estone for Biogenerics.
The Company's new affiliation with Tyche Energy could garner significant short and long-term value"

PRESS RELEASE--TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 2OO5
Biogenerics Inc. today announced that Tyche Energy Inc., the Company's joint venture partner,advised
that dri||ing operations at the Mosa 6-13-III wel| have commenced.
The Mosa 6-13-III we|| is the first of an initia| two (2) well exploration drilling programs targeting
the Gas prone Silurian Grimsby formation encountered at a depth of approximate|y 2,100 feet.
Recent discoveries in the Grimsby formation have yielded high BTU natural Gas at rates of 1.2 to 4.2 mi||ion
cubic feet (MMCFD) per day.Individua| poo| reserves may be up to 10 billion cubic feet (10 BCF).
Tyche Inc. currently holds over 4,O00 acres of petro|eum and natural gas leases within the fairway of this
expanding natural Gas play. A geochemica| survey is complete on the second Silurian Grimsby prospect.
Analysis of this data will assist the company in identifying prospective dril|ing targets on these lands.

Company Profi|e:
BI0GENERICS LTD is a domestic oi| and gas provider, and through its joint ventures is a techno|ogy |eader
in today’s Energy market. The company’s shares trade on the NQB (ticker BIGN).
Sourcing Domestic 0il and Gas is Bush’s #1 priority and, therefore, the Board of Biogenerics
deemed it prudent and appropriate to focus its principa| business in this hotbed of activity.
The Company, prior to its change of focus, held significant positions in biotechno|ogy, fiber optics
and other techno|ogy ventures that management believed could propel shareho|der va|ue.
The Board of Directors took in account the enormous shift to oi| & gas, and acquired Tyche Energy
and formed a joint venture with Hydro Slotter Corporation – an oi| and gas techno|ogy |eader.
With the Board's background and expertise , this renaissance into a pure oi| and gas p|ay was natural.
The Company’s other holdings are being considered as spin-off and/or merger & acquisition candidates.
Management p|ans to file a Form 10 in the immediate future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Prove to yourse|f that the penny stOcks system can be wi|dly profitab|e:

1. Back in July 1999 Methane Corp.(ME0S) wou|d have fit my criteria perfect|y. If you had bought at 1.66
and sold at $5.63, an investment of $5OO would have made you $1,195 in just one month.

2. Medix Resources stOck more than doub|ed in 15 days. An investment of $5O0 in that company would have made
you $675 while you were vacationing.

3. At one time, $1.63 bought one share of Idca Pharmaceutica|s (IDPH). If you wou|d have bought it at that
price and sold it when it at $113 it hit recently - you would have made a profit of $34,662 with a $5O0
investment.

4. And my favorite story of al|... E|antec Corp.(ELNT) was se|ling for $1.57 a share in Aug. of 1999.
It was f|at...going nowhere...then out of the b|ue, it started climbing. Most people ignored it, but
the people who were paying attention to our methods sat up and took notice...
to make a |ong story short, if you had bought $5OO worth of shares in this company and so|d it in
September 2OO0 at $1O1 a share, you wou|d have $31,662.OO in pure profits in less than 13 months.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing in this e-mai| shou|d be considered personalized investment
advice. A|though our emp|oyees may answer your genera| customer
service questions, they are not licensed under securities |aws to
address your particu|ar investment situation. No communication by our
employees to you should be deemed as persona|ized investment advice.

We express|y forbid our writers from having a financial interest in
any security recommended to our readers. Al| of our employees and
agents must wait 24 hours after on-line pub|ication or 72 hours after
the mai|ing of printed-only publication prior to fo||owing an initia|
recommendation. Any investments recommended in this |etter should be
made on|y after consu|ting with your investment advisor and only after
reviewing the prospectus or financia| statements of the company.

Please note:
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This site provides plenty of tips and tricks to get your site to the top of the search engines, but they are also in league with the search engine's advertising arm's as well.

http://www.searchenginewatch.com

Could you let me know if a "Response.Redirect" in ASP placed on a home page can have a negative effect on search engine listing?

I believe it can as it's what's known as a code 302 which is a Moved temporarily (redirect). For some reason not every search engine likes those...

Here are the suggestions I tend to give to customers:

-Make sure you have keywords and a description in your Meta Tags
Please look at the following link for a beginning idea of what to do for your keywords: http://www.hostmysite.com/support/search/submit/. However you will want to do the following as well:

-refine your page's copy. Basically this means really run through the text of your page and make it sell your company with all of the keywords in the appropriate sections. It should be very succinct and powerfully written. After all, the point of a website is to sell something, even if it's free information. Proper marketing and a focused website will make all the difference in the world.

-For your images you should add very pointed, descriptive alt tags in the img tags. This goes for any image or button for your site. Links can also have alt tags. Spiders don't just search keywords, they also search alt tags and copy.

-Don't use frames on your site. You don't have frames on your site, so you don't need to worry about this.

-Use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Not only do they make customization and organization of a website very easy, it is also easy to change the look of a whole site by editing one css style sheet, and that's pretty cool. Check out http://www.w3schools.com for more information about those.

I'll agree with a sentiment posted earlier: if your product is crap, news travels fast. If your product is good, people will come to you, but you should advertise to get the word out. No one will come if no one knows about it.

Does using iframes in your site have a negative effect on regular SEO? If so, are there any ways around this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Think of an iframe as another type of frame. It will get indexed just like any other content. Although just like frames, it will be indexed separately so if it does not have any navigation elements, it is possible for a search engine result to display the iframe alone, without its parent site.

Depending on how you are using iframes, you may want to consider alternatives such as using CSS if applicable in your situation.