The Web is big. Perhaps the strangest thing about its being big is that nobody can say with any certainty exactly how big it is. One estimate back in February 2000 indicated that the Web contained approximately 1 billion pages, but at least one search engine (Google) now claims to index more than 1 billion pages. If you decide to create your own personal Web site on which to share your genealogical research, it's a fairly safe bet that no other genealogist is going to simply stumble upon your site. Certainly, you could provide the URL of your site to people you know, or e-mail it on a mailing list. But how are you going to bring it to the attention of the millions of genealogists who don't see your message?
Fortunately, each of the major Web search engines provides a way for you to add the URL of your Web site to its database. However, it can be a bit tricky to find the right place to click in order to add your site. To make things more convenient for you, here are the appropriate addresses for each major search engine:
Some of the search engines will ask you to provide an e-mail address so that they can confirm your submission. Once you have submitted the URL of your homepage, the search engine will have its crawler program (also called a robot or spider) visit your site and index the pages it finds. In some cases, the search engine documentation says there is no guarantee that your site will be indexed. If it is indexed, there may be a delay of weeks or months before the address of your site will become part of the search engine's database.
In addition to search engines, you may want to consider having your URL added to some general directories, such as Yahoo!, Open Directory, or NBCi (formerly known as Snap). Unlike search engines, directories are maintained directly by human editors. While a typical search engine will index between
200 million and 1 billion Web pages, a typical directory will provide direct links only to about 1 to 2 million pages. The editors of a directory will pick and choose which Web sites they want to add, and they will decide which category the site belongs in. As you might imagine, a directory editor might have a large backlog of sites to be visited and added, and so it may take months (or longer) to get your site added to a general directory.
Although it is normally free to have a site added to a search engine or directory, at least one directory, LookSmart, has begun charging for its listings.
Here are the addresses that provide detailed information on how to suggest your Web site for inclusion in each directory (for those that are free):
- Open Directory
- Yahoo!
- NBCi: Go to the site and then click on the "Submit a Site" link found near the bottom of the page.
Finally, don't forget to submit your site to the single most comprehensive directory of genealogy-specific sites on the Web: Cyndi's List. For information on how to have your site listed on Cyndi's List, go to the submission info page.
Once you have created all of these breadcrumb trails to your Web site, you'll be amazed at how quickly people begin to find their way to your door!
Drew Smith is an instructor with the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He is also a regular contributor to the quarterly journal Genealogical Computing, where he writes the "Cybrarian" column. He can be reached at drewsmith@aol.com.
Digital Genealogy
