Submit It!

Submit It! was a search-business internet advertising product that Scott Banister created in 1995, while he was a student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Co-founded by Bill Younker and Larry Gormley, it was acquired by LinkExchange in December 1996.

Description

The New York Times reported, "Scott Banister started Submit It, a free, automated resource for bringing your page to the attention of many Web-searching outfits at once."^[1] According to Ali Partovi, Banister created a search-business model, "a simple but elegant concept that turned out to be one of the best business ideas in history".^[2] Partovi wrote that Banister created Submit It! in his dorm room, a service that

...helped website owners submit their URLs to multiple search engines and directories. Banister saw how badly his customers wanted to secure placement on search results. In 1996, he brilliantly conceived an idea he called Keywords: to sell search listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as today's AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab, and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and me.
— Ali Partovi^[2]

History

https://web.archive.org/web/20121023041146/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/LinkExchange+announces+partnership+with+Submit+It!-a018944356 "LinkExchange announces partnership with Submit It!". Business Wire. December 12, 1996.

https://web.archive.org/web/19980121155206/http://submit-it.com/pressroom/sibio.htm

https://web.archive.org/web/19980121154200/http://submit-it.com/

^[3]

https://www.clickz.com/linkexchange-acquires-submit-it/70678/

https://web.archive.org/web/20150526160753/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/05/magazine/fast-forward-hall-of-mirrors.html

^ Gleick, James (1996-05-05). "FAST FORWARD; Hall of Mirrors". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 26, 2016. Retrieved 2022-04-13. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; May 26, 2015 suggested (help)
^ ^a ^b "Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search Business Model". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-04-13.
^ "LinkExchange Acquires Submit It!". ClickZ. June 24, 1998.

[1] Gleick, James (1996-05-05). "FAST FORWARD; Hall of Mirrors". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on May 26, 2016. Retrieved 2022-04-13. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; May 26, 2015 suggested (help)

[:0-2] "Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search Business Model". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-04-13.

[3] "LinkExchange Acquires Submit It!". ClickZ. June 24, 1998.

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