I’ve had a few readers write to let me know that they’re having trouble getting indexed by Google and asking for advice.
There are a lot of different theories on how to get into Google’s search returns but by far the simplest way to do it that I’ve found is to simply get a link from another site that has already been indexed by Google that Google sends it’s bots to regularly.
Of course you can also submit your site to Google to be ranked or use a search engine submission program to do it – but I find the link option works pretty well in most cases for me. It might take a few days, or even a week or so in some cases, but in most cases it works reasonably quickly.
As bloggers the best way to do this is to write quality content that other bloggers will link to and to interact with other bloggers on their blogs (genuinely) via their comments. This is all it should really take to get indexed by Google. Of course then you have the challenge of getting to the top of the list for the keywords that you’re wanting to target. This is another story and is not quite so simple and some people spend their lives working on this task. Again there are many theories out there.
My advice in climbing the rankings is similar to getting indexed. In order to climb the rankings you again need other sites to link to you. In my mind this is the most important aspect of good SEO (search engine optimization). There are of course other factors, but what it largely comes down to in my experience is inbound links from other sites (relevant, highly ranked ones using the keywords you want to rank for to link to you ideally).
Does anyone else have any other tips for those exploring this? Feel free to add yours below so we can all learn.
It’s all very well getting indexed by Google, the real challenge is getting a decent position on the keywords you are indexed for.
I just tinker with a free Blogger account, and I find that my posts seem to be indexed within a few days.
I’ve had some visitors from some surprising searches. It’s certainly been good practice for optimising a site for SEO.
One thing I realised quickly was the importance of stopping indexing of main pages – google would index it at some snapshot in time, when certain of my posts held prominence.
However by the time someone visited my indexed homepage from a search, it was obvious (from their search terms) that they’d arrived at the homepage looking for an article which had since been archived off the home page.
I got my site indexed in a day using Sitemap Generator: http://sourceforge.net/projects/goog-sitemapgen/
My personal site is well indexed by Google, and I link to my other blogs from it (not as spam, I think it’s quite legitimate to link from a personal blog to blogs that I write). It’s not necessarily the most targeted traffic as subject matter is often different, but it’s still a link.
Darren also does this, see foot of page.
I’ve also been indexed in 24 hours (short article) using Google’s Sitemap feature.
There is now a Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress which has helped. Since it hints to Google that the content pages are probably a better bet than the index and archive and category pages, I’ve noticed more searchers reaching the content pages.
IF you need more help with Google and other search engines please read my blog http://mr-seo.blogspot.com/ Your blogs are great. I hope to learn from you. thanks so much :)
Actually, you will get indexed over time. Plus, any links you have pointing to your site will be held until the next update. Your blog is picked up by other blogs that are in google. Google has already indexed your blog (most likely) so it is a matter of time. You can add tags into your blog that can help.
Joe
I had no problems getting my site listed by Google, but I’m totally baffled as to why it rates so poorly (compared to my competitors) when on Yahoo & MSN I’m listed [generally] on the first page every time when doing the same general searches. Can anyone tell me why this would be happening ? & what I can do to improve my websites performance with Google ?
I’ve been indexed by Google for many years now, using the correct robot and revisit meta tags, in any index pages is a good way ensure regular re visits from Google and other search engines.
I never use an html editor mind, just a basic text editor (no spell chheck)
Hope this below helps you get better ranking.
noindex = don’t index this page
index = index this page *
follow = follow the links from this page to get more pages *
nofollow = don’t follow the links from this page
all = index this page and follow the links from it *
none = don’t index this page and don’t follow the links
* = default setting (no need for a tag)
The robots meta tag is used to pass instructions to the robots. Many of them accept the
instructions, particularly those from the major engines and databases. The content is
always one word. The recognised words are:- index, noindex, follow, nofollow, all and none.
Because the spiders will always index and follow by default which is equivalent to the all
content, don’t use this tag for anything but the things that change the default behaviour,
i.e. noindex, nofollow or none. Anything else is a waste of bytes.
Thanks Bob, really appreciate the advice :-)
We tend to leverage existing, older sites we’ve had running and indexed (high PR helps, I think the only place PR seems to do anything these days) and I “focus” their single OBL on the home page and a deeper link for the site I care to see indexed in the next week or so – has worked for years, and as far as I know is perfectly legit in the eyes of the SEs. If i were in a position where I had no such “helpers” I’d consider asking a friend or forum for a boost, somebody is usually nice enough to help give your site an initial boost…?
Some of your readers may think that they’re having trouble getting indexed when in fact they aren’t. Most of the SEO community pretty much believes and agrees that Google has an aging filter in place. What this filter does is it prevents new sites from joining the larger index for a period of time. SEO’ers feel this time is anywhere from five to nine months. The reason the aging filter exists is that too many spammers were publishing tons of sites with little or no new content in an attempt to take over as many of the top spots as possible. Unfortunately, every one else suffers.
So, while your site is probably indexed fairly quickly, it’ll have to pass through the probationary period before it starts showing up for your targeted keyword phrases. You will probably be able to find your site by Googling your company name, but if you’re looking for “red widgets” it’s unlikely you’ll find your site unless you’ve passed through the aging filter.
Thanks dzinerbear that makes a lot of sense but its the first time that I’ve heard of an aging filter. But I have noticed that most of the sites that rank well within the ‘tourist guide’ area are well established sites – some of which haven’t changed in several years – photos from 2002 etc. But if your right waiting up to nine months to get fully indexed is an awfully long time – what does that say about the relevancy of the Google index. We see googlebot on a regular basis but the new pages still don’t appear in the index. We use a ‘unique’ search to test our listings – Smugglers Cove – as there is no such place in the UK – in MSN and Yahoo we come out usually at the top of the page but google can’t even find it? It does make you wonder about relevancy!
Does Google hate me? It’s been one month, and google refuses to index me. I’ve been indexed on yahoo and MSN. I have good backlinks for mysite, but yet google refuses to index me. I’m not talking about not showing up in the searchings. I’m talking about site:deletemyspam.com shows up with no results.
Any ideas? I’ve been reading too many articles about people who got indexed in 1 day, 1 week, etc. What’s wrong, don’t they like my site?
Baz – you seem to be indexed to me in that your page has a PR of 1 on my toolbar. To get a PR you must be in their system.
What site: http://www.deletemyspam.com ???? It shows up as PR 0 to me. And http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-04,GGLD:en&q=site:deletemyspam.com returns no hits.
Baz it would seem that you’re probably a victim the aging filter – it does seem to be in place. I’ve checked it out by searching google and there is a great deal written about it! It seems that it may be in place for new sites for six to nine months!! This seems a truely incredible penalty against new sites and one which I am sure will p*** a lot of people off! It seems that their selfish policy is aimed at driving traffic to Adwords at the same time as stopping SEOs from linking new sites to the top of the list. But in business terms a process that takes nine months to complete is a definite turn off and one that could backfire on google. MSN and Yahoo could claim rightly that their search results are more up to date than googles which by there own actions are bound to be six months out of date.
PS I’m not really writing this at 4am!
The Google Earth Application
Google Earth is a unique application which lets you view almost every aspect of a specific location.
6 – 9 months??????? You’ve got to be kidding me right? What exactly is google thinking with this? I mean, I guess you get to cut off a lot of spam sites with that technique, but man, come on.
However this still doesn’t make sense, because I’ve personally seen google index “coming soon” sites, which means that all a person would have to do is sit on a domain for 6 months before they lauch the actually site.
Googe really needs to rethink this.
[…] site already indexed by the search engine. I’ve written a post about his previously here. Again I will reinforce – the above techniques come out of my o […]
Well, I submitted to Google and the mediabot hits me a couple a times a day, but I still don’t show up anywhere on my main keywords. I’m just impatient I guess.
I thought it might be a spam related problem with WordPress. Would like to get more information about the current status of that. In the meanwhile if anyone wants to read more about Cape Town, check out my blog. Ta.
Hello everyone
I am the same…I have done articles on debt problems, But dont seem to be indexed, I have tried a few things but it doesnt seem to work…I heard there is a thing called “SANDBOX” is this what they mean by this aging thing…..
Hi Darren,
I have a brand new blog. Just started it last weekend. After reading your post about importance of social bookmarking, yesterday I tagged one post at del.icio.us and one at Furl. Oh, and also I claimed it at Technorati.Today I did a search on Google: site:your URL.
It is indexed. It is not showing in SERPs for my keyword – it’s too early, but it is indexed.
Hey, I just submitted my site to Google and also a sitemap generated from Sitemap Builder NET. hopefully my site will be indexed soon. =)
Sorry the above link is with an extra “T” lol.
I currently have two homes in palm beach up for sale / rent and I really up the site gets indexed quickly, hopefully with your techniques it will get there.
Hey, I had a sitemap on Google for all my sites but it seems to be down for awhile now, anyone else have problems with the sitemap?
how can i index every page of my site? only my home page is indexed by google, and the rest is not.
myspace scripts and gens peace.
[…] 15. Submit to Search Engines – You can do all the best onsite SEO strategies in the world and still get no where because the Search Engines have not found you to start with. Each search engine has a way of letting it know about your site – submit your URL to be included in the index. Please note that this takes time and perhaps a quicker and more effective way is to get linked to by a site already indexed by the search engine. I’ve written a post about his previously here. […]
Ya its very helpful for ranking in google!
I got indexed for some keywords but want higher ranking..and trying hard for that!
Thanks,
Vijay
http://software-testing-askme.blogspot.com
[…] Now you won’t get into google fast by just using this, you may want to check out some other articles to such as How to get indexed by google by a good blogger known as Darren Rowse. You also might want to check out one of my articles, Getting your blog into google within 72 hours. […]
Does submitting the blog to social bookmarking sites help in faster indexing?
Nicky – I think that it probably would. I suspect Google is sending their bots to Digg, Delicious etc a lot as it’s updated so frequently. The only downside is that those sites can out rank you for your own content sometimes – digg particularly gets ranked quite highly.
I’ve always had great success with some of my sites by submitting my blog RSS feed to Technorati, Feedburner and adding it to my.yahoo.com account. Having people link naturally to you is the best bet, stay away from FFA link sites.
Best of luck
Sometimes its tough getting listed on Google. Even Typepad which has a PR of 8 with Google seems to have a tough time getting indexed with their blogs.
JT
http://doolittles.typepad.com/blog/anonymous-email.html
Seem hard to get index by google……arent linking make site easier for google to index?
Getting indexed the first time was easy but I’ve been struggling to get indexed since then – nothing for a month. As a blogger this obviously isn’t ideal! Any tips on this?
All this info has really helped me! I’ve just launch a blog this week, about Online PR (www.onlinePRblog.com).
Hopefully I’ve done all the right things, and Google isn’t far away! Cheers!!!!!!
My post about boxing was indexed by Google in a record time of 20 minutes?! Whoa.. my fastest post ever to be included in SERP! And to think that this blog is just a few days old!
How come I have PR and not be indexed in google?
Thira is that even possible to have a PR and not be indexed in google? It just doesn’t seem logical to me.
No, that doesn’t make sense. You have to be in the Google index to “earn” pagerank. There’s no other way. It’s Google’s system.
Some of my page are indexed less than 15 minutes. But i think it is right that the question is about pagerank since pinging engines and se’s bots are working so fast now.
Yeahh, pagerank.
Mr. Cheque.
http://cheques-gallery.blogspot.com
I had to wait over three months to get my PR. That damn sandbox.
Admittedly my site is pretty much junk but I do know my personal sites were indexed quickly with Google once I had a sitemap installed.
However my wordpress blog, which is the site I have listed here, has been around longer and still isn’t indexed. It is nice to find that other’s have the same problem.
Fortunately I do this as a hobby and so this indexing matters much less that it would for a business.
No matter how poor the quality of any site it seems to get on google. I have tried about everything, new updated sitemaps and anything I can think of. I guess if and wen google gets around to it they might index my site.
Does the filter apply to sites that have changed their domain name using 301 redirects?
We have been using deedpollservice.com for a while but was finding it hard to rank on google.co.uk searches so have now changed our domain name to deed-poll.org.uk. Will our new domain name be subject to the filter even though it was registered around the same time as our old domain name which was doing well in the SERPs?
Thank you for youre info, iam trying to get well ranked in google, hope youre tips will help me.