Directory Submission Is Complicated

Automated services make search engine submission a snap, but directory submission is more difficult - and takes longer. Human editors review each submission for quality and content before accepting it into the directory. The volume of new site submissions is so huge that they can afford to be selective. Increase the chances they'll choose you by submitting a first-rate site and following submission guidelines exactly.

Select The Proper Category
You must submit your site to the proper category and sub-category to have it reviewed by the proper editor! Directory editors are overloaded with submissions: they won't do your job for you and research the proper category for your site. Inappropriate submissions are much more likely to be rejected instead of forwarded to another editor.

You may also increase your chances if you submit to the regional portion of a directory. For instance, imagine that you own a real estate agency in Alabama and want to submit your Web site to Yahoo. In the main directory portion - Business and Economy/Real Estate - there are 343 sites listed already. However, if you look at the regional portion of the directory - Regional/US States/Alabama/Real Estate - there are 11 sites listed. In general, editors are more willing to accept sites into categories that have relatively few listings.

How To Register with Yahoo

Yahoo is the largest and most popular directory. It is also one of the most difficult to get into, so read the instructions carefully at Yahoo's site and follow them exactly:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/url/

You have two choices at Yahoo: free or paid submission. When you use the free option, you submit your site to Yahoo and wait (and wait, and wait some more) for a Yahoo editor to evaluate it. In fact, Yahoo's backlog is so large that the directory doesn't guarantee that anyone will ever look at your site.

The paid submission option costs $299 and does guarantee that an editor will review your site within 48 hours. It does not guarantee that your site will be accepted! However, Yahoo does report a much higher acceptance rate from its paid submissions because - in general - higher quality sites are willing to use this option.

How To Register with LookSmart

LookSmart was the first directory to stop accepting free submissions from commercial sites. Nonprofit sites can still submit for free (if they are valid, tax-exempt organizations), but LookSmart doesn't promise to evaluate the site within a certain time period.

Like Yahoo, LookSmart guarantees a look, but not a listing. You have two paid submission choices with LookSmart:
* Express Submit: $299 - Guaranteed site review in 24 hours
* Basic Submit: $149 - Guaranteed site review within 8 weeks.

LookSmart provides a complete explanation of its submission process at:
http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=US&chan=lshomepg

Although many people are unfamiliar with LookSmart, it is an important directory to be in. LookSmart powers the search directories of many leading portals including Excite, AltaVista, and MSN. This means if your site is not included in the LookSmart database, you won't show up in directory searches at these other engines.

How To Register With The Open Directory Project (ODP) 

You may never have heard of the Open Directory Project, commonly referred to as ODP, but it provides supplemental results for some of the Web's top search services including AOL Search, AltaVista, DirectHit, Google, HotBot, Lycos, and Netscape Search.

The Open Directory Project's motto is "Humans Do It Better." Their goal is to produce the most comprehensive Web directory available by using a huge number of volunteer editors to evaluate submitted Web sites.

Submit your site for free to the ODP after reading the instructions:

http://dmoz.org/add.html

If the category that you're submitting to doesn't already have an editor (there will be a "Become An Editor" link at the top of the page), then consider donating some of your time as a volunteer editor.

How To Register With Overture 

Overture, formerly called GoTo, is a "pay for placement" search engine in which top placement in search results is given to the highest bidder. It is being included in the Directory Submission area because top bidders on Overture get high visibility placement (usually in the form of Sponsored Links) on the top of Yahoo and other directories partnered with Overture.

There are two ways to get listed with Overture. First, to get the best results, you can bid on a set of keywords, and pay based on the number of people that find your Web site by searching for those keywords. For example, a top bid for a given keyword might be $0.25. If 10 people find your site by searching in Overture for that keyword, you would pay $2.50. Payment is based on clicks, so you don't pay unless someone actually clicks on a link to find your site through Overture. This is the best way to get traffic from Overture.

To learn more about Overture's paid placement, visit this link:

https://signup.overture.com/s/p/esf?promoCode=U2022D&s=efs

The second way to get listed in Overture is to submit to a common base database provided by a company called Inktomi. The easiest way to do this is to submit to Hotbot. So, while your site may not be at the top of Overture's search results, you can get listed in the engine simply by submitting to any Inktomi search engine. Search Engine Starter submits to several search engines powered by Inktomi, so using the tool should get you included in the basic Overture database.

Summary 

Submitting to Directories is more time consuming than submitting to search engines. You have to keep in mind that directories are edited by humans, not computer programs. So, how your site looks to a human and having good content is especially important. Of course, since there are so many interrelationships between directories and search engines, you still have to optimize your page for good search engine placement. Be sure to run your pages through Page Primer before submitting to a directory.