Webmasters: How to get on Search Engines?

[Armstead]

I have a personal (non-political) art website.Had it for about six years, and recently redid it. I also have changed ISP's and want to redirect traffic from the otehr.

But it seems times have changed.

With my original site, I had pretty good luck getting it placed enough places to generate regular traffic. Not tons, but a reasonable flow. On Open Directory, which got it into Google and otehr listings that use Open Directory. Also in Yahoo directory, plus otehr smaller search engines.

Now it seems that it is impossible to get linked to. Many of the SE's now want money, just to submit a listing. And others don't respond or crawl to explore. The site has not had one outside hit since I set it up.

Any hints or suggestions to get linked? It seems like I'd go broke if I did the paid listing route, and this is just a personal site.

[demnan]

1. What's in your meta-tags?

[Armstead]

2. all the right words

I've checked the logs regularly, and I don't even have spiders visiting to read them.

[Dems Will Win]

3. Google only $5 to start, Overture gets you Yahoo

Overture some money but will get you hits. Google is so cheap (5 cents a hit) you'll hardly notice it. THose are the 2 biggies. Old days are gone is right...

[bif]

4. Some allow you to submit a site

Others make you pay for it. I've had pretty good luck manually submitting my various sites in the past.

[wyldwolf]

5. This is part of what I do for a living... PM me the URL and I'll ...

...give you some pointers.

[felonious thunk]

6. Not a ton of ways anymore

The best advice from Google, and I've always found it to be the best, is write good content, alt tag all your images and hope that people click on your page when they do a search.

One tactic others have tried is to put together a "google page" where you write pretty much all major headings and search terms into the content of the page within your <p> tags. Then redirect the page for anyone actually clicking on it to your home page. Google doesn't seem to have a problem with this, so long as the terms you are using do actually relate to your site. They like this better than meta tags, since meta tags are usually invisible to the users. Live content is much more important.

[ParanoidPat]

7. Have you checked the Google 'Webmasters Info' section?

:evilgrin:

Webmasters Info
• Index
• Getting Listed
• Not Listed
• Incorrect Listing
• Rank Questions
• Guidelines
• Facts & Fiction
• SEOs
• FAQ

Submit your URL
• Submission Form
• Remove Content

[Armstead]

8. Been there, done that...

A wgile back. Still no spiders crawling my way.

[matcom]

10. i'm a certified SE specialist

its what i do for a living. shoot me the URL and let me take a quick look

[bif]

9. I must have lucked out

My site is the first one returned when doing a search on google and Yahoo.

[Armstead]

12. My old one was ranked pretty high.

But it seems a lot harder this time around.

[rbnyc]

11. Go here:

http://www.addme.com/