I have provided some links here for Agents to make sure they are registered in the most important search engines. There are only about 5 search engines that are really needed. The remaining search engines have fallen away over the last few years. The major one, a search engine that commands over 70% of the market is Google – and this is a must.
Most Popular
Google
Register Here – Notes: Register your site only once and only your main page. (i.e. http://www.propertypoint.com.au )
MSN Search
MSN Search
Notes: Includes Ninemsn Portal, go to the site and select a search term that is relevant to your business, if you cannot find your site go to the bottom of the page and look for this link Didn’t get the results you expected’? Help us improve. Click on this link and register your website.
Sensis
Register Here
Notes: Go to this page and simply register your URL (Domain name) with a brief description. Try to put relevant words in your description.
Yahoo
Yahoo Search
You must register to add your site to this and other search engines under the Yahoo banner. Once you have signed up login and go for it, it is quite easy.
DMOZ
DMOZ Directory
Notes: The DMOZ directory is used by many search engines for their directory listings (including Google). This is operated by volunteers and can take some time to appear but it does give reasonable results. You must find out where you want to be listed and read the registration carefully, you cannot repeat words in your title and description or it may be rejected. This can be frustrating if you wait 3 months for a response only to find out it has been rejected.
Summary
There are many other local directories and search engines but results are pretty poor, I suggest writing to all companies that you purchase products/services from and write them a letter asking for a link to your site on their web page. You spend money from them and they are unlikely to say no. This is one of the major factors in which Google ranks your website. The more genuine sites that link to you the better.
Be warned though, in the real estate industry there are many sites that are set up just as real estate link directories to make them more popular. They are only set up to make them more popular in Google, not to help you get results. Google can mark points against you for being a part of these types of sites.
Most of these sites require you to place a link on your website front-page, sometimes with a logo, avoid these at all costs.
Finally
A good place to start looking for search engines to submit your site to is SearchEngineWatch.com it has a good range of information as well as links to all major and minor searc h engines and submission links. Bookmark this page and start submitting, within weeks you will start seeing results.
Remember
Most web developers have no idea as to the difficulties in submitting to search engines, they may come up with all sorts of rubbish, if they blurt on about submitting to thousands of search engines, well…. they are the ones I would avoid. It is your web developers responsibility to create a web environment that will aid the visibility of your website.
Hint
Look for companies that know a lot about search engines, maybe even specialise in this area to handle this for you.
If you find your web page has not been set up appropriately then please leave your web developer and go to a new one. They do not deserve your business, the process is simple, however I have found 9 out of 10 web developers fail miserably in this department.