The vernacular is build a site and they will come. This clich is only true if your site is indexed in the relevant search engine database.
Indexing
Search engines are essentially massive databases of domains and sub-domains for sites. When a person searches for something, the search engine instantaneously searches the domain names to come up with relevant listings. The method for doing this differs by engine and involves factors beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we are going to focus on figuring out if your site is in these important databases.
If you want to be included in the rankings on a search engine, your domain name has to be in the search engine database. Put another way, you have to buy a ticket if you want to win the lotto. Your chances of getting free traffic from rankings are far better if you have as many urls from your site included in the database as possible. Having just your home page indexed isnt going to cut it.
If your site has 500 total pages, you ideally want 500 urls included in the search engine index. While this is admittedly a simplification of the situation, the more pages included, the better chance you have of getting high rankings under different keywords. The more high rankings you produce, the more free traffic you can get and the easier it will be to survive the loss of one ranking.
To check how many pages of your site are indexed in a particular search engine, simply do a search on the particular engine for site:yourdomainname.com. Pay particular attention to Yahoo, as it often will fail to pick up many of your pages. The result of this search will tell you every page the engine has found on your site and included in its database.
If you discover only a few pages have been indexed by the search engine, you need to take a look at your site. A common problem for sites using databases concerns dynamic urls. Many programmers will write session ids and so on into the urls. The search engines have massive problems reading these urls and will often fail to include them in their databases. You have this problem if the internal pages of your site have tails like:
yourdomainname/id43/s-876783/product=46830
If you have this problem, the best solution is to create static pages without the dynamic urls issues. The session ids and so on should be moved into the code of the page and removed from the url. You will probably need a programmer to make the fix.
If you do not have this problem, you need to figure out how to get your site into the indexes. There are plenty of articles telling you how. The first step, however, is just figuring out if the search engines have found you.
Halstatt Pires is a search engine optimization specialist with - an Internet marketing and advertising company in San Diego offering meta tag optimization services and link popularity services.
Have you noticed your website slipping in the Google rankings over the past few months for keywords that previously scored high Join the club and welcome to The Google Dance.
The Google Dance is a phrase that was coined to explain the new search engine algorithms that Google puts into play on occasion. The most recent Google Dances in the past year startled website owners as they watched their previous number 1 site plummet to number 400 in the rankings or disappears off the Google charts all together.
Many of my clients called me in a panic, wondering if they did something wrong to cause this to happen. The answer is mostly: no. You didnt do anything wrong. Google is testing new search algorithms to help people find more relevant results from their searches and to give penalties to people who use illegal techniques to try to get higher rankings in the search results. I cant say that the results are any more relevant, though. For instance, when I use the keyword small business coach, I expect to receive results that list small business coaches websites. But when I type in small business coach in Google, the first result I get is an Amazon.com site. In fact, only four out of the top 20 sites listed are coachs sites.
So, what to do The knee-jerk reaction is to try to figure out what the new algorithm is and to optimize your site accordingly. Thats a bad idea. First of all, the search engines use over 100 elements to rank a site. Since you cant possibly know what all 100 elements are, or what weight is given to each element, you will be wandering in the dark. Second, you dont know how long this particular Dance will last, so you might be optimizing your site only to have it all wrong when the next Dance occurs. Third, you might optimize your site for Google, only to harm your rankings on Yahoo or MSN.
My advice to my clients is two-fold: First, read the guidelines for each of the search engines and make sure that your site isnt doing something against policy, as your site will be penalized and dropped in ranking. Next, sit tight. Wait a month to see how the Dance goes. Monitor your site once a week to see where its ranking is for each keyword phrase youre tracking.
Search engine optimization should be just one part of your fuller Internet Marketing strategy. While the Dance is happening, focus on other pieces of your Internet Marketing strategy and use other techniques to bring visitors to your site. In the end, your strategy and results will be stronger.
2005 Karyn Greenstreet.
Karyn Greenstreet is a Self Employment expert and small business coach. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with self-employed people to boost clarity and focus, create sustainable motivation, and increase sales and profits. Visit her website at