Directories and Search Engines

You cannot succeed in submitting a website without understanding how search engines and directories operate. This would be like wanting to play a game without knowing the rules.

The first important thing to know is the difference between a directory and a search engine.

In a directory, there is a staff of surfers that visits, accepts and classifies (or rejects) the websites suggested to the directory.

In the case of a search engine, the pages of a website are read and processed by software. No surfer comes specially to examine your artwork. This is a fundamental difference since the score of your pages, and hence their ranking, does not depend on their appearance or how useful they are. This has an impact at a practical level. For instance, imagine you have created an entire website just using Flash and are very proud of the results. A search engine would never "see" your Flash movies and would consider your website empty. Needless to say, your website will never reach the highest positions in search engine listings.