Web Site Promotion Scam site submission and search engine lead times Has your inbox been flooded with emails from online promotion companies shortly after you submit your web site to the search engines and Yahoo? Be very careful how you proceed, because these companies could be online scam artists. Here is why.

First, all search engine and directory submissions have lead times. What this means is that your web site or web page is submitted to the search engine, the site has been recorded by the search engine spider, but it will take some time before your web page is added to the search engine catalogue.

For a directory, your site must be reviewed first, accepted into the directory, and then added to the catalogue. The time between submission and addition to the catalogue is called the lead time. Lead times vary from a few days to a few months. In fact, most web pages are not added to a search engine catalogue for at least 2 weeks following submission, barring any technical difficulties.

Now, we’ve noticed that the spam mail usually comes after a Yahoo submission, but we’re sure other promotion companies have found similar trends. If you have a new web site and if your site was recently submitted into the search engines and Yahoo, when you get an email stating that your site is nowhere to be found in the search engines, delete that email.

Your site has not had enough time to be added to the catalogues, and these scam artists are trying to take advantage of peoples’ ignorance about lead times. If you hired a good search engine optimization specialist, your site will show up eventually, just not immediately.

Also, these scam companies assume that they can figure out your keywords and key phrases just by looking at your meta-tags on one page. Good online marketing specialists know how to strategically place keywords throughout your site, not just in the meta-tags, for optimum search engine indexing. They know how to use singulars and plurals, synonyms, and well-written headings throughout your entire site. Just because one keyword does not get you in a Top 10 position does not mean that your site cannot be found on search engines.

Only you can determine which keywords and key phrases people are using on the search engines and directories to find you (on your site reports). You might find that people are finding your site using a certain phrase or your service and a location name, such as “web site designer Illinois.” Once you determine how people are finding your site, then you can adjust the HTML coding accordingly.

So please don’t be in such a rush to hire these scam artists. They are relying on your ignorance of search engine and directory lead times to scam you out of your hard-earned money. They will continue to spam you even when your site is listed well in the search engines and directories.