Site placement or search engine submission is a very important part of any search engine project.

In our office, the search engine submission job is done by Jessica (a real person). Jessica submits all of our clients sites to approximately 200 different search engines and directories on the Internet. All of the submission is done by hand with the aid of a few utility programs and spreadsheets to keep everything straight.

Submission of site is done to build references and referrals to your site. Here is why submission is important for you:

Let's say your starting a business - you want to get your name out there and you spend lots of time with "meet and greet" activities. One of the first things that you find out is that "meet and greet" activities do generate business and you discover over time that the referrals you gain from this activity really builds your business. The next thing you find out is that it takes lots of time, and one of the first things you consider doing is hiring someone to do it for you, but initially it is always worth the effort. Think of search engine submission as the "meet and greet" activity for your website, as the number of sites on the Internet that mention yours goes up so does your search engine ranking. These links to your site are known as "backlinks".

Just like the referral network that you build with your meet and greet activities, some of your referrals build business better than others. You may find that the best referrals from your activity come from a certain type of customer. The same is true with search engine submission activities, some sites that mention your site will build a better "backlink" than others. Some have no affect on your ranking at all, some have great affect on your search engine standing. We strive to maintain a list of search engines that provide good, solid referrals to your site, in fact this is part of the reason we built our own directory - as a reputable place to introduce new websites

Our submission services have us placing the site in a variety of different search engines and directories. These can be classified into a four broad categories:

"Free" - sites that allow us to submit or list a site for free. There are lots of these out on the Internet, one of the more well known is a search engine called "Google", but there are many others, including our own Search City Directory that offer your site benefits when it comes to search engine position.

"Link Exchange" - site placement on these link partners sites are generally done for free, but only if you reciprocate and provide a link back to them. Some sites offer both a "free link" an "exchange link" and perhaps even a "paid link". Many times what differentiates the type of link is the popularity of the page on which it is places or the prominence in that websites. Some sites in this category do a very good job of providing referrals to your site, others are not worth the effort. As part of all of our projects we will build and provide ongoing management of your link exchanges. We will even update your site for link exchanges that you negotiate yourself.

"Pay to List" - these are listings that require that you pay a one time or yearly fee to list in their directory. Perhaps one of the most well known is the Yahoo Directory. These listings in many cases have become the "entry or pay to play fee" for sites doing business on the Internet. In their early days they often accepted sites for free, but as their reputation and user base built, a fee was introduced to generate revenue. We submit to about 10 different pay to list directories as part of our search engine optimization services. It has always been our practice to simply pass along the costs of this to the customer with a small management fee.

"All Others" - there are lots of different links that will work for websites out there. Everything from banner ads to news or newsletter mentions. We work with our clients and our referral network to develop these links to insure that your site gets the best position. Often this involves The BitWorks Inc. calling other site owners or Internet authors to ask for a mention and promote your site or product. At times there is additional consideration that is passed along to the site or author, or perhaps it is done as a friendly gesture resulting from some personal "meet and greet" activity of our own on your behalf.