Yahoo is biggest of all search engines, well actually that's not true, you see Yahoo is not technically a search ENGINE it is a human compiled directory of websites and does not have a spider bot going to sites and indexing them. But for sake of this article when I say search engines I am referring to all 'search sites'.

Anyway as I was saying Yahoo is biggest of all search engines, did you know that recent estimates show that Yahoo is currently capturing an amazing 40% of all search engine traffic online? Do you know what this means? That means that almost 1 out of every 2 people that do searches on Internet use Yahoo, everyone on Internet has done searches some time or another.

Nothing in world should be clearer to anyone with a website whose just after reading above figures - you need your site listed in Yahoo. A.S.A.P.

RECAP If your site is not listed in YAHOO INDEX, (note - being listed under webpages does not mean you are listed in Yahoo, it in fact means you are listed with Google because Yahoo gets webpage results from google) you are losing lots of potential customers to competitors that are listed in Yahoo. And with amount of visitors Yahoo can send you even with an average listing this could amount to hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars worth of lost profit.

Now you know how important it is, lets get on to good stuff, how to submit to Yahoo.

Well first you have to determine scope of your site. Is your site commercial or noncommercial? Commercial sites that want to be listed by Yahoo now must use "Business Express" when submitting. This used to cost $199, however price has risen to $299 a year.

"Business Express" what is it? Good question and one that many people ask, well it's basically same as free submit except that with business express your site is guaranteed to be reviewed within a weeks time. However please be aware that it does not guarantee that your site will be accepted and added to Yahoo index. If your site is rejected Yahoo will allow you to appeal for free within a certain time scale (usually 30 days) of being informed of your rejection. Also Yahoo staff usually include in your rejection reason you have been rejected, you should examine these reasons fix any problems and resubmit after a week or so.

If your site is a noncommercial site, you will still be able to submit for free, but a review could take as long as 8 weeks or might never happen at all.

Before you submit make sure your site is 100% ready, under construction pages need not apply to Yahoo because they are not going to get in. Your site should be aesthetically pleasing to reviewer, be quick loading and of course should has lots of content.

OK lets get started. How does Yahoo return results? Well search results on Yahoo are determined by words that appear within these four areas:

1) category, 2) title, 3) description, and 4) URL. These sites are then sorted by relevance using an automated algorithm.

I will now go through these four different factors and how to optimize you submittal for each one

First up category selection, many people don't realize this but when someone searches for a term(s) on Yahoo its algorithm searches through category name also, for example visit www.yahoo.com and you will see results for a search done on 'Internet marketing articles'. You will see under each listing that these words are highlighted if they are in name of category, top listing has most occurrences of these words between its title, description, URL and words in category its in.

You should remember this when submitting to your category, when trying to establish what category you are going to submit to you should do a search for one or two of your keywords and see what categories come up. But which of these categories do you submit to?

Since most referrals to sites from Yahoo come from search results and not from people visiting certain categories, it is wise and best (in most occasions (I'll tell you why in a bit)) to submit to a very specific category with lots of keywords in category name. To see this strategy in practice revisit results page for 'Internet marketing articles' on Yahoo.com notice that top ranked site is in a category with lots of keywords, these are: Internet, Business, Advertising and Web, these combined with various keywords in title, description and URL combine to give this site a pretty good chance at ranking well on a few good keywords and phrases. Therefore category names are just like having more titles and descriptions. Note - if you are a regional operation try to pick a category with name of your state or province in it. This will help you get targeted visitors from Yahoo.

Getting your web site listed in major search engines is an absolute necessity. Why? Because 80% of all people on Internet use them when searching for information.

Finding correct information on major search engines can be very frustrating. Search engines keep changing their strategies. Some which were free, are now charging high fees. Previous ones, have been bought out by others.

This article will give you most current information concerning major search engines since these have most searches. Some of them are still free, whereas others are fee-based. Pay per click search engines will be addressed in future articles.

Here are major search engines, listed in alphabetical order.

1. AllTheWeb.com (Fast Search) http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php This is one of largest indexes on Web.

Free - It takes 2 weeks for your site to be indexed. There is no guarantee to get listed.

2.. Altavista. http://www.altavista.com/addurl

Free - this gives you a basic submission. You can add up to 4 URLS and be considered for inclusion in 4-6 weeks. There is no guarantee of inclusion.

Paid - AltaVista Express Inclusion. Guaranteed submission within 48 hours. Price $39.00 I URL for a 6 month subscription

3. Ask Jeeves. http://static.wc.ask.com/docs/addjeeves/submit.html

This is powered by Ask.com and Teoma.com. It takes 7 days to be included.

Price. 1st URL$30.00 URLs 2 - 1000$18.00 each

4. Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Google is top choice for searchers.

Free – it is free to submit but there is no guarantee of a listing. Allow 1 month for your listing to appear.

Paid What is Google Adwords Program? This is where you purchase highly targeted advertising based on keywords and phrases you select. When a person enters that keyword you selected, your ads are displayed.

Price $15/ thousand ads shown for position 1 $12/ thousand for position 2 $10/ thousand for position 3 $8/ thousand for positions 4 through 8

5. Infospace. http://www.infospace.com/info/submit.htm

Free to submit, however you need to fill out a form to get listed.

6. Inktomi. http://www.inktomi.com/products/web_search/submit.html

Inktomi's search engine has an extensive network of Web search partners, including AOL, iWon, MSN and HotBot. It refreshes your site every 48 hours, to keep your content up to date in index.

Price First URL costs $39.00/year. Each URL thereafter costs $25.00/year.

7. Looksmart. http://www.looksmart.com

The LookSmart Network consists of partner sites that use content of LookSmart directory in their directory search results. Partners include more than 370 ISPs and following top portals: MSN, Altavista, Netscape, Infospace, CNN.com, CNet. According to their web site, they reach 77% of all Internet Users.

To submit your site, go to bottom of page, where it says "submit a page".

Price $49 Listing Set-Up Fee. $150 minimum refundable deposit for new customers. LookSmart tracks number of clicks your listing receives across LookSmart Network. Every click received by your listing results in a $0.15 deduction from your account balance.