Brett_Tabke - 4:29 am on May 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

"old school" submission, was a rip off to me. There used to be nothing more involved in it, than litterally putting your url into a box and pressing submit. In the era of pay-for-spidering engines, pay for directory listings, and pay-per-click listings, submission is a whole new game.

First, there is so much variation in what people define as "submission" - it needs some qualifiers.

Submission in it's pure form is the simple submission of a url/urls to search engines. That in and of itself is nothing worth paying for. We have about 5 search engines that are worth your time to submit too. If you are not ready to pay to get listed in the pay-for-spidering engines, then I don't think "submission" in this context is worth it.

If you going to pay for se url inclusion, then that's a different game. It is involved and tricky to submit the right urls and to get them to rank decent in some of the pay-for-spidering engines. That certainly needs some hand holding and in that context, paying someone to manage the right url submissions is worth every penny.

Directory submission can be tricky too and a pro should be consulted by submitting a site to Yahoo and the like. You have to get it right the first time. I've done this stuff for years, and I still occasionally hire a yahoo pro to do a few yahoo submissions because I think it is critical to get it done right the very first time.

If "submission" is defined as complete management and some sort of seo consulting thrown in as some firms describe it, then "submission" can be worth your time. It all depends upon what the extra services are.