Semi automated sumbmission safe?

The fear of automated submission

[silverbytes]

Automated submission software or services never had good reputation. Some say if you use it you are in risk.
I saw a software using semi-automated directories and search engines submission, basically it lists sites, takes you there and lets you put some preformated information, but you make the manual submission.

Do you consider this handy?
Any experiences using this sort of tools? (sticky me please if you can't give software names here)

[Quadrille]

You never need to submit your site to search engines; they'll find you.

Using preformatted infomation in submissions to quality directories severely reduces your chances of being accepted; every directory worth submitting to is unique, and a genuine manual submission, following their guidelines, is likely to expedite acceptance. All other submissions, these days, tend to be considered spam - remember, they get a lot of spam.

Even using automation to find such sites is often a mistake; once you get in auto mode, you miss the clues that tell you the difference between a good directory, a waste of time, a link exchange (bad neighborhood), and an adsense seven day wonder.

Directories are important (for now), and it's worth getting it right - it's not the quantity of directory listings that counts - it's the Quality

[larryhatch]

"Some say if you use it you are at risk."

I'd say some people are quite right, an understatement really.
I've never been harmed by those free submission services that I KNOW of but ..
More to the point, not a one of them ever did my site the least bit of discernable good.
What did happen was I got spammed by all sorts of rinky-dink "SEO Experts".
I'm still filtering those out of my email, and this is from years ago. -Larry