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It used to be that every search engine had a submission page (an "Add URL" interface) and all a Webmaster needed to do was to visit each search engine, find the link to the submission page, enter their Web site's URL, and be done with the process. The search engines, however, responding to the many people who abused their submission interface, found it necessary to set undisclosed submission limits, watch the identities of the submitters, block many submitters, and even ban Web sites that submitted too frequently or too aggressively. For this reason, the Golden Rule of submitting today is this: Go slowly, be patient, submit cautiously.
You need to ensure that the search engines index your site, and it is important that as many of the site's pages as possible are indexed. It's a bit like a raffle. The more tickets your buy, the greater your chances of winning. Likewise, the more pages of your Web site that are indexed, the greater your odds of coming up when someone searches on a keyword or phrase relevant to your site.
Submitting, by itself, is not enough: You have to work to ensure that your submitted page attains a top ranking. Pressing the submit button and walking away is not an adequate solution in and of itself. SEO is an iterative process and as such, you will submit your Web site, ensure it was accepted, measure your ranking, tweak and revise your page, and then resubmit it. The four steps below may seem intuitive, but you would be amazed at how many companies believe that their first step constitutes their complete SEO program:
1. Make your submission.
2. Receive confirmation of acceptance (add-URL confirmation is displayed).
3. Verify your ranking. The submission results in a ranking on one of your targeted keywords or phrases (not a certainty, but a desired outcome).
4. Monitor your status. You should continue to verify that your Web site remains in the search engine.
Submitting All the Pages That Make Up Your Web Site
Search engines promise that if you supply one page of your Web site, they will spider all of the other pages and index your entire Web site. This is rarely the case, and it will probably be necessary to submit all of the pages that make up your site, one by one, to each of the major search engines. I have found that it sometimes takes quite a long time for a search engine's spider to return to complete the task of indexing the pages beyond the one specific page (usually the home page) you submit. Sometimes they never complete the indexing of the whole site.
Be sure to read each search engine's submission guidelines carefully. The search engine submission process is becoming increasingly complicated.
What to Do If Your Rankings Disappear
The Google spider is very active and over one million new Web pages are being submitted per day. It is not uncommon for you to drop down in the rankings or disappear entirely with this competition. You should always check the number of links that are directed to your competitors' sites and compare that to the amount of votes to your site. You can find the number of sites linked to your site by typing "link:yoururl.com" into the search box, without quotes. If you want to increase your positioning, you may need to have more links of importance pointing to your site, since the number one search criteria that Google uses is link popularity.
If you Web sites have lost substantial ground in their positions, you should make sure that your content reflects the search terms that you would like to display your site. Confirm that your site contains all of the search terms within close proximity of each other and that they are right through the whole document, particularly in all of the headings and links.