About 6 months ago I created a site explaining how worthless most search engine submission programs are. After referencing it again via email today I remembered it and figured it was worth sharing it amongst other SEOs for a laugh. :)

Please read this site for a laugh, but do not link at it: dollarseo.com

And here is the summary of the service provided by one well known search engine submission service (which lead to email spam, bait & switch offers, and spammy MFA sites that did not even have a submission link)

January 5, 2008: Bought $29.99 _______ SEO service from a second shady search engine submission service provider.

After entering keywords that I came up with, _______'s meta tag generator came up with the following meta tags for me
<title>dollar seo search engine optimization services inc.</title>
<meta name="description" content="No information was found">
<meta name="keywords" content="No information was found">
which prompted me to use my meta tag generator, which offers real useful advice on how to generate a good page title and good meta tags.
Submissions are done manually or semi-manually. They list the big 3 engines, Alexa, DMOZ, Librarian's Internet Index, and the Yahoo! Directory.
I submitted to the engines, but did not submit to the major directories because I doubt they would list this site there, and did not want to risk them removing some of my other sites because they were angry I submitted this one. The Yahoo! Directory may have listed this site if I paid their fee, which is $299 a year. Paying that extra $299 fee removes DollarSEO from its roots though ($299 for one link sure takes the $30 SEO project out of the $30 category), and again, I did not want to risk them removing my other sites from their directory.
Beyond that they list something like 200 more directories and search engines. Since many of these directories are free, their business model is hidden on the back end. You will find that they send you no traffic, but do spam the crap out of your email inbox for submitting to them.
- Some of these emails say click here to confirm, and then if you click through and submit your email address and website details they offer a Paypal button for you to spend $20 on the submission, even though it is to a search engine with poor relevancy that nobody uses. Even if you do not pay you can bet they will email you.
- Some try to upsell you on more "submit your site to thousands of additional search engines" programs.
- Ask yourself why so many of them need to validate and revalidate your email address to take your listing. It is because they want to pound the crap out of your inbox with spammy offers. I remember being on the receiving end of this crap when I started out on the web about 5 years ago.
Some of the listings have errors.
- Skaffe (the directory) was listed as a search engine.
- The additional search engines category includes AltaVista and Alltheweb, which are powered by Yahoo Search.
- The first additional search engine link I clicked on was in German, had no actual submission form that I could see, and included a huge AdSense ad block in the content area.

Update: For driveby searchers here are some free search engine submission links, though you will probably need to build links to rank for anything competitive.