When your web site is built, you or your Webmaster should submit it to the search engines. Preferably the person doing this is a search engine specialist. Submitting simply means telling the search engines that your web site is out there and you would like them to include it in their system, in the hopes that it will come up when people do searches. You do this by filling out a form at each search engine's web site.

Resubmitting is doing the same thing, all over again, with each search engine. People generally do this because they feel it will help them get better placement. The squeaky wheel gets greased, is the way the thinking goes.

So if resubmitting once were good, then wouldn't resubmitting again be even better? Following this thought train you end up derailed: "You've got to resubmit your web site every month… no, every week… every day…"

This is a myth! This resubmission myth is almost as pervasive as the "Meta tags are important" myth (see Myth #1).

The truth is, resubmitting all the time is silly. Resubmitting makes sense if your web site is not appearing at all in a search engine. Maybe they missed you, or never got your first submission. It happens. The information superhighway is full of roadblocks and traffic jams. If you notice your web site is completely missing in a search engine, then resubmit your web site, to that search engine only.

One of my Search Engine Engineers went to a big conference on search engines recently. When he came back, one of the more humorous things he reported to us was what a bigwig from one of the search engines told everyone in attendance: "95% of all the submissions we get are garbage." A lot of that garbage is from people resubmitting their site over and over and over, because someone once told them that resubmitting constantly is the key to doing well in search engines.

As I recall, there was one search engine, years back, which shall remain nameless, that for a brief period of time actually gave a bit of preference to more recently submitted sites - a tiny, tiny bit of preference. They figured recently submitted sites were more "fresh" or something. This didn't last long! As soon as the word got out, the deluge of resubmissions from frenzied webmasters began. They killed that tiny bit of preference real fast. But the myth is still out there: "You've got to resubmit your web site to the search engines all the time!" The funny thing is, it never made all that much difference in the first place.

Frankly, search engines don't like you resubmitting your site over and over. I've read a report or two that indicates that some search engines are starting to do more than simply ignore your resubmission when you haven't changed anything in your web site. They are starting to penalize gross abusers. "Quit bugging us!" they are saying. I can't blame them.

Resubmit when you are not appearing in any particular search engine. And resubmit to that search engine only. If you are doing well - don't resubmit. As a business associate of mine from Texas used to say: "Don't dig up a snake to kill it!" In other words, don't fix what ain't broken.

If you aren't appearing as well as you'd like in any particular search engine, don't resubmit unless you make some changes. If you haven't made any changes to the site, why resubmit? It probably won't help, and there's a chance it could hurt. At best it's a waste of time. Put your energy into optimizing your web site for search engines - and then resubmit. That makes sense.

Published: August 18, 2000

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Lawrence Schoeffler is Vice President of Dominion Homes Web Services and founder of NUMBER1EXPERT. Dominion Homes Web Services includes Advanced Access, Agent Advantage by Homes.com, and Best Image Marketing, and is a division of Dominion Enterprises. Advanced Access is the industry leader in agent websites. More agents invest in an Advanced Access website than any other. Agent Advantage is the official agent website service of Homes.com, one of the most popular real estate portals in America. NUMBER1EXPERT by Best Image offers America's Top Performing Web Sites, with traffic and leads unequalled in the industry, sold exclusively to Top Selling Agents. Email Lawrence at .