Search Engine Submission is a Scam and Google Profits from it

by Patrick Altoft on December 4, 2007

If a website wants to use Adwords to advertise on the term “search engine submission” it will cost them around $500 per day, equivalent to $180,000 per year. Assuming Google is earning this amount of money from a few sites they are making a profit of over $500,000 per year from this one keyphrase.

The problem with this is that search engine submission is nothing but a scam. You don’t need to submit your site to a search engine and you certainly don’t need to re-submit in the future.

Google, Yahoo and MSN all find sites using links, so when another site links to yours they will find it and index it. No submission required.

If you really want to submit to these search engines you can, for free, at the links below:

This is what Google has to say about search engine submission:

Inclusion in Google’s search results is free and easy; you don’t even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as “spiders” to crawl the web on a regular basis and find sites to add to our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in our results aren’t manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when our spiders crawl the web.

So, if it is “free and easy” why is Google making money from it?

I would like to see ads removed from this keyword and Google to create a page in the webmaster help section that ranks number 1 for this query debunking the myths about search engine submission.

What do you think?

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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }

James Mann 04 Dec 2007 at 11:58 am: Great point. Why pay for search engine submission.

I have always tried to get my clients and friends to understand that they really only need to write a couple of well focused articles and get them published on the main article directories.

Make a few comments in forums that are relevant to your content and in no time your page will be visited by the search engines that are indexing the places you put your articles and comments.
Advice Network 04 Dec 2007 at 11:15 pm: It is a scam, and it is not going to stop. The only thing you can do is what you just did. Let people know it is a scam. Now at least everyone who reads your blog will be safe!
Nick 04 Dec 2007 at 11:40 pm: I don’t think you can blame Google for making money out of this and why do you assume an advertiser would ‘have’ to pay $500 a day? Is there any proof that these companies have no effect what so ever? If there was, there’d be a huge black name against them and i doubt Google would let them go ahead.
Shaun 05 Dec 2007 at 9:13 am: Not sure about removing the ads, but i agree that making it more obvious that this is something you can easily do yourself would help a lot of people save a lot of money.
John Cutt 18 Dec 2007 at 7:48 am: Its is true that webmasters themselves can do search engine submission, but it involves lot of time effort, energy and research which is not possible for everyone. That’s where in the search engine marketing professional come into picture. Finding the right service and person for your company and boost your website in search engine.
Stuart 31 Dec 2007 at 9:59 pm: It is a scam try to cancel.
Max 23 Jan 2008 at 8:49 pm: I have never payed for Search Engine Submission in my life and I don’t think I ever will. All the good search engines finds my websites anyway. Great Article Patrick
gabriella 02 Mar 2008 at 4:00 pm: What do I think?

I would very much like to read Patrick Atloft’s blog on Search Engine Submissions/Google Prifits Scams REWRITTEN for the proverbial layman. Patrick must try his best to PRETEND that he has no idea what the meanings are of the terms he uses, including just HOW this whole process functions and why, etc.

I realize that it is likely that Patrick tried to do this — to explain the whole idea to us in the most simplistic way he could imagine — but he HAS FAILED miserably (or is it “very well?”) Pretend, pretend, pretend, Patrick. Please, pretend you’re 7 years old and know nothing about search engines and the like; then try to explain it to your fellow classmates.

Thank you!

gabi
Nigel 30 Mar 2008 at 10:07 pm: Well it seems pretty clear to me. I’m no expert but I think Patrick’s advise is sound. The search engines are finding my website without me submitting it or using any submission service.
But you do need to keep working constantly on relevant content and relevant inward links – which isn’t easy in a niche market where the sites on the web with the most relevant content are probably your competitors.
Tamsin 29 Sep 2008 at 12:41 pm: Submitting to the search engines is free and easy to do. Internet marketing experts cannot do anything extra with this process than you can do for yourself.
It isn’t actually required to submit your page to search engines. The spiders will crawl the internet and find your website anyway. Create links via a news article or by posting on a relevant forum and the search engines will find you.
joseph mcewan 19 Oct 2008 at 10:15 am: I am fully convienced that people who make money on the internet are the ones who only game is scam others. I have tried several online business site, the ones who promises to promote my website with traffic, they take your money and you never hear from them again. Set an forget, 10.000 visitors for $50.oo I have wasted so much cash on these things without any success. ( It’s internet robbery ,they are all worthless scam artists) so beware folks beware, and don’t get caught!
Aarif 31 Mar 2009 at 8:21 am: its really fake they take 400 dollors but in reply i receivez O
Keshav Saini 18 Apr 2009 at 8:20 am: There is no point that Google is making such a huge sum of money by only this keyphrase. Moreover there are loads of free Search engine submission services that are semi automatic and you can choose to submit your site daily to different directories by choosing your category.
Ari 23 Apr 2009 at 11:43 pm: i agree too !! paying for trafic is waist of time MOST OF THE TIME, but google adword is good if you wanted to send the massege out quick or IF you were %100 sure that advertising will MAKES YOU MONEY , i mean IF YOU HAVE A VERY GOOOD PRODUCT.
Jeff 20 May 2009 at 4:07 pm: I can’t believe that anyone even considers registering their website with a search engine. Even fathoming that idea is asinine. Perhaps it’s brought about by the “time-fighters” of America that assume things have to be manually cataloged, like this is 1960. Please. Wake up and realize the century.

As for the scam though: People will always fall for scams when they are desperate, any con-artist knows that. The only way to prevent people from falling for scams is to prevent people from being desperate… which isn’t possible.
dan 21 May 2009 at 3:53 pm: never pay more then 20 bucks a MONTH for ads. you can refine over time, and this method does work
ALLAN 27 May 2009 at 4:47 pm: question….just signed up for the “google profit” deal….how do i get out of it?
J.Campos 18 Jun 2009 at 8:04 pm: Hi there ALLAN,

I got here by researching on the subject. Now is it true they’ll charge you $72.21 each month after you submitted your billing info? Is it true they’ll also sign u up for SafeLockID for $19.95 a month and GrantSpring for $14.95 a month? Is it true they won’t tell you but you’ll find out in your bank acct’ s statement?
Boy, call something a scam!
Don’t take my word for sure, but I also found you can call 866-951-1406 Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm to cancel.
It is worth give a try.
Oh, and… keep researching, but beforehand.
Good luck!