2 Questions

[kornmonkie]

Thanks in advance.

Question #1:

Would any of you know of a good source to submit my URL to search engines? Do you have any good ways to get your/my website name out to the world? I know it can be a little tricky depending on what kinda site you run, but are there any tricks for getting hits?

Question #2:
Does anyone know a program or method(besides by hand) of taking data froma text file and organzing it? I need to take the names, addresses and owners of companies which are all in a single text file I downloaded and organize them seperatly by Name, Address and Owner.

[lookout]

There's numerous search engine submittal sites available on the web. Kind of depends on the site content in order to determine which one might work best for you. Some engines are more commercially driven than others. Get listed at DMOZ if you can. Alltheweb is one of the bigger ones that's still pretty easy to get into.

On question two, you're looking at a database type application. Just set up your file as a comma (or other) delimited text file and import it into the commercial database program of your choice. You could even do this using a spreadsheet program, but that's not really what they do best.

[jason]

Yes, get listed on Dmoz. Dmoz is a feeder site for Google and other engines. As soon as I got a few of my sites listed on there I started seeing them pop up all over the place in other searches. Yahoo is another good place to get listed, but it is considerably harder to get onto Yahoo these days unless you are willing to pay.

--Jason

[stevenha]

Let me add, that you probably should avoid submitting to the hundreds or thousands of lesser search engines and directories. It does no significant good, but can result in an avalanche of spam email to you. If you can't resist the temptation to submit to all the lesser directories and dubious search engines, at least use a throw-away email address.

You must give dmoz a try, but be prepared to wait a long time. Paying for a Yahoo listing is not bad, but it's really just paying for some PR (PageRank) in my opinion, and therefore, you may be able to make the same payment go further, if you can make a private arrangement with someone to buy a high PR link.

[jason]

I'm a Dmoz editor, so if your site has anything to do with the category I edit, I'll get you right in. I doubt it does though, so I won't be able to be of much help. On the whole, sites I've sumbitted to other areas of Dmoz have usually been listed within a week or two. I've had much slower turn around with Google.

--Jason

[gerilya]

Out of curiosity, what category do you take care of, Jason?

[jason]

Reference: Education: Colleges and Universities: North America: United States: New York: Rochester Institute of Technology

Its a mess right now. I want to reorganize it to be similar to the University of Rochester's layout, but I haven't had time to do it yet. Its basically, with the exception of a bunch of new sites and a couple new categories, the same as it was when I took it on...

--Jason

[kornmonkie]

Maybe some advise on what category I need to apply for.

It's a database and mesage board for Alaska Radio and Televison.

[jason]

How about:

Arts: Television: Stations: United States: Alaska
Regional: North America: United States: Alaska: News and Media: Television
Arts: Radio: Regional: North America: United States: Alaska

There may be others that suit your content as well. Search around and see what you can find.

--Jason

[Vin DSL]

I suppose this is a matter of opinion. Keep in mind that I'm as old as Moses, in computer years. I've been doing this BBS/Internet stuff since the early 80's...

There are only 3 search engines that count these days - Google - Yahoo - MSN. Forget all the rest. 99% of searches are done on these 3 search engines or through their partners and affiliates.

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by jason
Yahoo is another good place to get listed, but it is considerably harder to get onto Yahoo these days unless you are willing to pay...

Bah! Piece of cake...

• http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=len...=www.lenon.com

[Vin DSL]

Originally posted by jason
I'm a Dmoz editor, so if your site has anything to do with the category I edit, I'll get you right in. I doubt it does though, so I won't be able to be of much help. On the whole, sites I've sumbitted to other areas of Dmoz have usually been listed within a week or two. I've had much slower turn around with Google.

--Jason

ROFLMAO! Good thing I didn't say Dmoz sucks. It was right on the tip of my 'tongue.'

Well, I'm glad I kept reading this thread. According to Alltheweb, there are 5600+ links to my web page out there, but at least now I know why I'm not listed on Dmoz...

[jason]

Actually, Vin, all of the hits to your site on Yahoo are web serach hits, not category hits. Yahoo gets those fed in from other search engines (in the past its been AltaVista, Inktomi, and then Google, now I'm not sure where they come from). Those are easy to get. Getting into their category listings is considerably harder to do.

Google is pretty much the only engine I search with these days, and I know this is true for most people. I went to a search engine conference last year, though, and found out that the top 10 engines include a few that no one ever goes to (Inktomi, Overture) because they feed their results to a lot of smaller engines (like MSN, for example), so you can't discredit them. Also, if you are trying to appeal to a European market you want to make sure you're listed in Lycos.

As far as user traffic to dmoz.org is concerned, there is very little, however the Open Directory is used on many other sites that get considerably more traffic (AOL, Netscape) and is used as a feeder for Google, so I often recommend that owners of new sites try to get listed in the Open Directory. Since Google bases their ranking on site popularity a listing in the ODP caries more weight than a submission from their "Add URL" form.

Vin will probably disagree with me on all of this, but its what experience has taught me.

--Jason

[lookout]

That has been pretty much my experience as well, Jason. All I can add is that the "right" approach for building a site's ranking has always been, and probably always will be, a moving target.

[Vin DSL]

Update...

• http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=vindsl