Getting Your Site Listed in UK Search Engines

Email this to a friend   Print this story

A few tricks of the trade for maximizing your exposure to a UK audience by targeting UK-based search engines, directories, and pay-per-click engines If your product or service can be bought by UK citizens, can be shipped to UK citizens and is of interest to UK citizens, then you should be looking to get yourself seen by UK eyeballs. This article will give you a start in getting listed in all the search sites that matter to UK internet users. So put o­n your bowler hat, hum the tune to "The Great Escape" and start thinking like an Englishman(!?). Below is a list of the top 10 (totally unofficial, but near enough!) UK search engines, 10 UK directories and 3 UK pay per click engines that WILL allow non UK sites to be listed. This is o­ne aspect to look out for, you may find a UK search engine or directory but you should check to see if they allow non UK sites into their index first. All of these search engines and directories listed take submissions whether you’re from Brighton, Toronto, Dubai or Timbuktu. UK Search Engines AltaVista UK - http://addurl.altavista.com/sites/gben/help/addurl Excite UK - http://www.excite.co.uk/info/add_url/web Lycos UK - http://www.lycos.co.uk/service/addasite.html MSN UK - http://search.msn.co.uk/addurl.asp Search UK - http://url.searchengine.com/index.cgi UK Plus - http://www.ukplus.co.uk/ukplus/SilverStream/Pages/pg UKPlusAddASite.html?paidid=0&brand=UKPlus Mirago - http://www.mirago.co.uk/regions/default.asp Euroseek - (http://www.euroseek.com/) - Currently offline but will be back! Google UK - http://www.google.co.uk/addurl.html Hotbot UK - http://www.hotbot.lycos.co.uk/submit.html   UK Directories Yahoo UK - http://www.yahoo.co.uk - submit via category Looksmart UK - http://www.looksmart.co.uk - submit via category Lifestyle UK - http://www.lifestyle.co.uk/footer/contact.htm Splut - http://www.splut.com/ - submit via category Lycos UK - http://www.lycos.co.uk/dir/ - submit via category Everyday UK - http://www.everydayuk.co.uk/submitsite.htm UmYup (UKPlanet) - http://www.umyup.co.uk - submit via category (leave "country" as UK) UK Searcher - http://www.uksearcher.com/suggest.htm Contents.co.uk - http://www.contents.co.uk/submit/index.html Brit Index - http://www.britindex.co.uk/ - click o­n Add Url link   UK PPC Engines Overture UK - http://uk.overture.com/ Espotting - http://www.espotting.com/ Mirago - http://www.mirago.com/ The UK PPC engines work exactly like the US/Global versions. Other UK search engines will also take listings from these PPC engines, e.g. Getting a top listing o­n Overture UK will also get you o­n Ask Jeeves UK, Alta Vista UK, Excite UK, and Freeserve.com which is a major UK ISP. Espotting and Mirago also outsource their results. (Remember that the currency o­n these PPC sites is Sterling not Dollars!). Finding More UK Sites Here are a few sites that will help you find more sites to get listed o­n, remember to check whether they list non UK sites though if you're not actually from the UK: http://www.searchenginespy.co.uk/ http://www.allsearchengines.co.uk/cgi-bin/mozzy/dir.cgi?/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/ http://www.search-engine-index.co.uk/Regional_Search/Europe/United_Kingdom/ And here's a couple of UK meta search engines just for good measure old boy; http://www.searchy.co.uk/ http://www.moonmist.co.uk/ http://www.ixquick.com/   Other Considerations When targeting UK users don’t forget about the major global search engines and directories like Google.com, Yahoo.com, The Open Directory, FAST, Inktomi, etc. UK users will still go to a .com site, in fact o­n Media Metrix (http://uk.jupitermmxi.com/xp/uk/data/thetop.xml) Yahoo.com is nearly twice as popular as Yahoo.co.uk. This means that you should target UK eyeballs by incorporating "uk" into your keyphrases, e.g. "blue widget" becomes "uk blue widget" or "blue widget uk." UK users are very aware that dot com search sites tend to be US-centric, so when they search for something they usually place "uk" at the front or at the end of their search enquiry so they don’t get a whole load of US sites in the results. Another consideration is to buy a .co.uk domain name (I recommend http://www.easily.co.uk). Some of the search sites mentioned above have a "uk" filter, this means they give extra advantage to sites with a .co.uk domain name as it is more than likely that your site has a UK focus. Finally, as we all know there are some spelling/language differences between the US and the UK. I think the pilgrim fathers dropped a few U's in the crossing of The Atlantic. Humor/humour, color/colour, neighbor/neighbour, etc, etc -- just be aware. This should be enough to be getting o­n with for now. Good luck with your UK search engine rankings and with gaining more UK traffic. Just keep those shipping charges down! Please Click if you like this on google plus.