This is the second blog article in a series of articles, “Promises SEO Companies Can’t Keep” that shutterstock_252339109highlights some of the more common promises SEO companies are making that should be WARNING SIGNS you are about to be or currently are getting Ripped-Off!  This week’s “promise” will reveal how painfully antiquated an SEO Company’s strategy can be.

PROMISE: Submission to 100+ Major Search Engines

Many old school SEO companies still list this as something they do for their clients, claiming to increase a client’s visibility in search engines and “make sure you’re found by everyone.”

How this used to work: Many search engines used to have a “submit link to index” area on their site, where you could paste in your website’s URL and request their indexing bots’ scrutiny. After a period of time, their bots would visit the page and index the content. Many search engines had a policy stating that requests for indexing could only be made every 30 days (or so).

How this works now: First answer this question: How many search engines can you name, right now? Probably three: Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, right? Some people might be able to name a few more (Dogpile, duckduckgo). But 100? And if you can’t name them, then odds are you aren’t using them, either. So even if this were a valid tactic, the effort would be wasted.

But, there’s more. The answer to “how this works now” is simple: It doesn’t. The “big three” of search engines automatically send out bots to index the internet now, and they follow links like it’s their job – because it is. And, while there are tools you can use to manually submit your site’s content for ranking/evaluation, over submitting your website to them can penalize your ranking. So it’s best to let them come to you.

Next week, we will discuss another Promise SEO Companies Can’t Keep: “We’ll Get You 100s of Backlinks to your Website Every Month.”