Free vs My Time

Hmm..."Free" can have many different meanings on the web. Now that I have a few websites, I need to do some offsite seo, so people know they are there. OK, I have the basic idea of what I need to do, like submitting them to search engines, articles, backlinks, etc. I am still no pro, but I have the general idea.

Because of that, I still look for lists of what experts think you should do once you have your site built. Check lists. Everyone seems to have a bit different way of doing this, so I like to see what's out there. I came across a few, that all suggested using a certain free submission site to get listed on like 200 different search engines. Ok, free is good, I will give it a go. I used one of my old sites, just in case. It only took a few minutes to give all the info it needed, and then click "submit". It said "thanks" and asked me if I wanted to add any others. That was easy. I noticed that some of the results were pending an email verification, so I went to the email to do that.

WOAH!!! There were like 153 verification emails there waiting for me! Well, a mobii's gotta do what a mobii's gotta do. I started this, so I had to finish it. What got me, is that every single one of these little SOB's asked me for the same exact info that the original submitter had asked for. Umm...weren't they supposed to pass on this stuff when they submitted my site? Wasn't that the whole point of this "we make it easy for you" operation?

I spent about 2 hours with this mess. I am the first to admit that my time isn't exactly worth gold at this point yet, but it damn sure isn't "FREE"!