IMPORTANT: Do They Really Submit?

Do Search Engines really submit your website for free? I've created a website, an online wholesale merchandise store and more.

I know the webhost has submitted it into it's Search Engine, at lest that's what they tell me, but I know I'm not getting the traffic I need to get to make sales.

I've tried submitting it to Search Engines that say they'll submit it for free, but are they really submitting it? And if so, why do they want me to add their link to my website if they're offering this service for free?

Thanks for your reply,
newyork

Newyork - you do not have to pay to submit a site to the major search engines: Google, MSN and Yahoo!

Any search engine that wants webmasters to pay for inclusion will have such a limited index that searchers won't want to use it. So what's the point? I can't think off the top of my head of such a search engine that is still running. The pay-for-inclusion model was recognised to be a failure years ago. The big search engines today are funded by advertising, for example: http://www.google.co.uk/ads/index.html .

Nor should you need to add a link to a search engine. Gigablast offers a boost in its rankings to pages that link to it, but it doesn't require you to link in order to be included.

For more about submitting a site to Google, see http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/ .

By the way, this forum is for questions about the Open Directory, which is not a search engine.