By Danny Sullivan , March 20, 2000
By Danny Sullivan
Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com
March 20, 2000
The results of a survey of web site marketers has found that most prefer to submit manually to search engines rather than use auto-submission tools. Most marketers said that this was because they "know" manual submission is more effective. Most respondents also said that they optimize their web pages for crawler-based search engines and submit only "when necessary." Those who do use auto-submit tools preferred software packages over web-based services.
About 300 readers of the I-Search mailing list responded to the survey, which was conducted in February. Results were presented by list moderator Detlev Johnson, at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference, in New York.
Full results are as follows:
Did you optimize your pages in any way before submitting?
| Yes | 98.5% |
| No | 1.5% |
How often do you submit?
| When necessary | 68.0% |
| Monthly | 14.0% |
| Quarterly | 10.0% |
| Weekly | 3.0% |
| Daily | 1.0% |
| Other | 4.0% |
How do you submit?
| Manually | 84.0% |
| Auto-submit tool | 16.0% |
Why do you submit manually?
| Know it is more effective | 60.0% |
| Think it is more effective | 26.0% |
| Can't / don't want to auto submit | 6.0% |
| Other | 8.0% |
Is your autosubmit tool web-based or software?
| Software | 71.0% |
| Web-based | 29.0% |
If you use a web-based service, how effective is it?
| Very effective | 43.0% |
| Somewhat effective | 36.0% |
| Somewhat ineffective | 21.0% |
| Not effective | 0.0% |
If you use a software package, how effective is it?
| Very effective | 26.1% |
| Somewhat effective | 56.5% |
| Somewhat ineffective | 8.7% |
| Not effective | 8.7% |
Which web-based service or software package do you use?
| WebPosition Gold | 44.0% |
| SubmitWolf | 9.4% |
| VSE BeFound (Mac) | 9.4% |
| Exploit Wizard | 6.3% |
| JimTools | 6.3% |
| Submit-It | 6.3% |
| Proprietary | 9.4% |
| Other | 9.0% |