Marcia - 10:35 pm on Jan 17, 2002 (gmt 0)

Thanks Sparty, and also thanks to click_watcher for the suggestions that spurred some more thinking.

The way I personally look at it is to optimize a site for Google and a few pages for Inktomi. If you're willing to take a chance on getting into Ink with free submit some day, eventually, maybe, it's one thing, and some have had success with that route. But in some cases time is a factor, so paying to submit for a years' inclusion for a couple of interior page makes a lot of sense- to me, anyway. That gets you into AOL & MSN, who you'll want to target for this type of site, in addition to Google and Yahoo, which uses Google for secondary results. I'm speaking of U.S., you may have an international market also.

Having a limited budget to work with, and since you're new to optmization, in your place, while Yahoo is important, I would not spend $299 for Yahoo directory or $299 or $149 for Looksmart until a little while down the road when more research had been done. Besides, Yahoo is too much in flux now to risk the $ unless cost is no object. It's $299 per year. It may be a good way to jumpstart, but a lot depends on how competitive the category.

Yes, submit all pages, 5 per day to each search engine where it's necessary. It isn't with Google, they need to find you through an external link from a site already in the index. An ODP listing will work, but get another that will be quicker.

ODP is critically important, study the guidelines carefully and check our forum here. Don't miss that one.

There are always differences in opinions and approaches, but probably certain basics are universally applied. That's about all I can think of now, glad we could be of help to you here. Dig in and read, there's a wealth of information here and we all learn more each day.