Question
Do you have to submit your website to the search engines in order for them to find you? They don't just search all of the internet based on the word(s) inquiry? Do they never find you otherwise, or does submitting to the search engine just increase your chances?
I don't really understand how page-ranking works, but I am guessing that you can somehow make it so your site comes up on page 1 or so, vs page 375 of the search.
Answer
Originally Posted by Boystuition
Do you have to submit your website to the search engines in order for them to find you? They don't just search all of the internet based on the word(s) inquiry? Do they never find you otherwise, or does submitting to the search engine just increase your chances?
TECHNICALLY, no you do not. As long as someone who is already "indexed into Google" is linked to YOU, then the search engine/s will EVENTUALLY find you.
Then, there's folks like me who submit their websites on a semi-regular basis.
I don't really understand how page-ranking works, but I am guessing that you can somehow make it so your site comes up on page 1 or so, vs page 375 of the search.
Well, sortof. If you have enough folks linking to your site, and your site offers outstanding content, and if you have enough pages, etc. The algo (the system search engines use in order to "place" a site within search changes at an alarming rate - and they don't publish the "this is how one get's to page 1" notebook. It's a crap shot, but there ARE things one can do with their site to obtain (and STAY) on page 1.
Clear as mud????
Answer
OK, this may be a cop-out, but here's the info from google...
1. The basics
Google is a fully automated search engine, which employs robots known as 'spiders' to crawl the web on a monthly basis and find sites for inclusion in the Google index. Since this process does not involve human editors, it is NOT necessary to submit your site to Google in order to be included in our index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed are not manually submitted for inclusion.
Google does not accept payment for inclusion of sites in our index, nor for improving the rank of sites in our results. We do offer advertising opportunities adjacent to our results, which are always clearly labeled "Sponsored Links." The method by which we find pages and rank them as search results is determined by the PageRank technology developed by our founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
2. Submitting your site
We add thousands of new sites to our index each time we crawl the Web, but if you like, you may submit your URL as well. Submission is not necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index. Given the large number of sites submitting URLs, it's likely your pages will be found in an automatic crawl before they make it into our index through the URL submission form. We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index, and cannot predict when or if they will appear.
Please visit our "Add URL" page to input your URLs. You can submit your site as often as you like, but multiple submissions will not improve the likelihood of your site being added or accelerate the process. We do not penalize sites for 'over-submitting'. If you choose to submit your site, only the top-level domain is necessary, as the spiders will follow your internal links to all the rest of the pages.
The best way to ensure Google finds your site is for your page to be linked from lots of pages on other sites. Google's robots jump from page to page on the Web via hyperlinks, so the more sites that link to you, the more likely it is that we'll find you quickly.
Here's some info on their page ranking... http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html
You can go here >> http://www.google.com/addurl.html to add your site URL to index, they note the following disclaimer.. We do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.
A good way to get indexed is to add a link to your website in your signature file here on here... The google spider is here almost every day.
-Jim
Answer
Kathleen, you type faster then I do.. maybe it was the 4 hours sleep...
-Jim
Answer
=Jim
... 'spiders' to crawl the web on a monthly basis and find sites for inclusion in the Google index.
When they say "find sites for inclusion", do they mean they find sites that were not previously indexed, or are they looking for particularly interesting or relevant sites?
We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index, and cannot predict when or if they will appear.
Do they not add all submitted sites just due to time contraints, or do they actually refuse some sites based on content or whatever?
=Jim
A good way to get indexed is to add a link to your website in your signature file here on here... The google spider is here almost every day.
-Jim
Good suggestion. Right now my site is still a work in progress, no product to sell.
Thanks again for the help. If it isn't obvious from all of my posts across the website boards, I have gotten serious about following through on my New Year's resolution. I don't know what I would have done without all of the resources and help provided here.
Answer
Originally Posted by Jim
Kathleen, you type faster then I do.. maybe it was the 4 hours sleep...
-Jim
Hehehe!
Yours? or Mine?
Answer
Boystuition here is the easiest and fastest way. To explain how it works if I have a link on my home page to your home page when google visits my home page the spider will see your link and go out via the link straight to your home page and now you have been indexed. As Jim said if you put a link here that will get you indexed fast. One word of caution I would wait till I was sure my site was ready. You don't want to get indexed on a site still under construction.
Answer
Ah, ok, so the spider has to have some path to follow, it won't just randomly hop around cyberspace and find my site?
If I have a link to my site via ebay (shipping link with a home button) would it find it that way?
If I put a link here in my sig line, will you guys be gentle on me? I'm sure there are a lot of problems with it, but I am just plugging along.
Answer
I doubt the spider would find the link from eBay.
Go ahead & link it here.
We were ALL beginners - and in many respects, still are!
I'm dying to see your site!
I'll even toss your link on one (or more) of my sites for ya!
That'll give the spiders the "push" they need.
Cobalt Lady did it for me.
Answer
Ok, I added my site (sites actually because I am waffling back and forth between two different spellings/permutations) to my signature line. I have two different website hosts, 1and1.com and hostsave. I would be interested in knowing how these might be loading. On AOL/Netscape and for the hostsave account, I notice that the changes do not show up right away. Also, on netscape, my background is funky.
I got kinda carried away with graphics and colors while playing with html so it might be obnoxious.
I do know that my "review cart" buttons do not work, I get an error message. I am trying to sort that out. Otherwise, the links work for me.
Here is a link to the shipping page that I have on ebay. This shipping page is not visible as a shipping link on the website because the shipping terms are different.
Shipping Information Ebay Auctions