Dear Kalena…

Can you submit individual pages separately of a website to
the search engines – if so – how? My URL is: http://freewebs.com/jazzlist

Thanks
Cy

Hi Cy

Technically it is possible but you need to understand the way search engines index web sites in order to fully understand why this is often considered the wrong way to approach site submission.

With regards to your own web site http://freewebs.com/jazzlist there would obviously be an argument for individual page submission due to you not having a dedicated domain of your own and as your web site is not located in the root directory of the hosting site, there is little to suggest that submitting http://freewebs.com/index.html would have any bearing on your own web site’s performance.

The argument for submitting to search engines seems to have been around longer than the search engines themselves!

Some say that you need to submit only your homepage, usually index.html or similar and that the search engine will then index all links from this page and over time your site should be completely indexed.

There are variations on this theory the most common is submitting a properly formatted and structured sitemap alone to the search engine of your choice. the search engines then index all links from this sitemap alone. Formats vary but most popular are sitemaps written in xml, this version in particular is favoured by Google.

For further information: Google friendly site map protocols

Others say that you don’t need to submit any pages or sites to any search engines at all, instead you are better to create keyword rich and optimised content that, if written well enough should attract Google and the others along through social bookmarking sites and articles linking to your sites, a lot of people out there prefer this method as it is often considered a more honest approach to site submission.
I know of several websites that have never been submitted to any search engines but if these sites change content or write a new article then Google indexes this within 24 hours, proof indeed that if your content is rich and your site is attractive to the search engines then your site will become more successful based on its own content and merits alone.

The thought that you could submit a single page is a perfectly valid one but before you do this ask yourself this simple question…why do I need to do this?

The answer lies in the hosting and structure of your own website and your choice to follow a free/shared hosting option, this decision may have been made for any of several reasons. The truth is that as long as your site is hosted on a free, shared hosting solution your site will most likely struggle to achieve its full potential as you will no doubt come across issues when trying to optimise this kind of hosting solution.

The advantages and full control offered by a dedicated host/domain solution far outweigh any cost restrictions and in my opinion should always be the way to go.

I appreciate some people and businesses out there want to create a website for little or no outlay but as these are often clearly charging for what they provide perhaps they should consider what their visitors will think and how they will be perceived and judged in relation to their business acumen when the free hosting option is taken instead of creating a professional presence on the web.

Best regards

Andy Watson
Wildcat SEO