This is the second blog article in a series of articles, “Promises SEO Companies Can’t Keep” that highlights 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 month, we will discuss another Promises SEO Companies Can’t Keep: “We’ll Get You 100s of Backlinks to your Website Every Month.”