Hi Larry ~
As you can imagine, everyone would like their website to appear in
search engine results as quickly as possible; and the top two or three
pages of search engine results pages (SERPs) are enviable positions.
Obviously, since the amount of first-page listings or a high ranking
in SERPs is limited, Google strives to present the most relevant
information to a searcher's query. You will see a lot of references to
"relevant" content and sites, which is an important consideration for
both getting indexed and playing well. This will be discussed in this
answer.
==========================================
Timeline: Getting A Quick Listing
Or Shortcuts to Getting Listed in Google
==========================================
To answer your question, "how quickly can I get my site to be indexed
by Google", is that it can take up to 8 weeks after submission to be
included in Google's index, if at all. Google states on its Add:URL
page,
"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."
- ://www.google.com/addurl.html
Even under the most favorable conditions, Google explains that it "...
will often index your site within six to eight weeks."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#B2
As explained in Google's "Getting Listed", you can't "buy" or "pay"
for a quick listing, either.
"Google does not accept payment for inclusion of sites in
our index, nor for improving the rank of sites in our
results."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A1
Of course, your mileage may vary.
I personally have seen sites listed on Google within a few days. Other
anecdotal accounts have reported the same thing, for instance these
from Webmaster World,
"We Ranked High for 30 days, and then fell - Question
about Google indexing"
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/21347.htm
or
"Timeline for Google indexing a 'new' site - over the last
two months",
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/20928.htm
When you submit your site or Google discovers a new link to your site,
they are often crawled and indexed in a reasonably short period of
time.
This phenomenon is known as Google's "freshbot". A site will often
appear for a short time with a surprisingly high ranking and then
suddenly seem to drop out of Google's index. This is actually because
of the enormity of Google's indexing scope (about 3.5 billion pages),
and the fact that its index is spread over dozens of data centers.
Obviously, all the data centers cannot be simultaneously updated, and
there are often different results for a search term from different
data centers as the information is continuously updated.
There is more information about Google's "freshbot" and "deepbot"
available from the following sources:
* "Googlebot: Deepbot and Freshbot FAQ and Information -
FAQ and general information regarding Google and it's
spiders"
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/9213.htm
* "Google Freshbot - Ever Ready bunny syndrome"
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/7814.htm
A Google search of Webmaster World's discussions regarding freshbot
can be found here,
- ://www.google.com/search?q=site:webmasterworld.com+freshbot&sourceid=opera&num=100&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
In summary, there are no shortcuts to getting a listing in Google.
There really no shortcuts for other search engines, either. Even those
search engines which require payment do not guarantee either placement
or a quick addition to their search engines. The for-pay search
engines only promise a quick consideration of a site, or more
specifically a site's pages, for inclusion.
Indexing a site, adding the index to a search database takes time,
there is no way around it.
====================================
Google's AdWords
If You Really Want to Show Up Fast
====================================
If you really "have" to show up fast, you can look into Google's
AdWords. AdWords are those ads which appear in search results on
relevant sites who are approved for the AdSense program.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: While you can enjoy almost instantaneous results to
a highly targeted audience with the use of Google's AdWords, your use
of their paid advertising service will NOT guarantee your site's being
listed in Google's index.
You can read more about Google's AdWords here,
- https://adwords.google.com/select/main
======================================
So, How Do You Get Listed In Google?
======================================
There are two methods by which a site is added to Google's index.
As mentioned above, you can use Google's Add:URL page,
- ://www.google.com/addurl.html
and just the reminder that Google does not make any guarantee about
when or if your site will be included.
Google describes the "best" way of getting listed in its Webmaster Information,
"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."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A2
Establishing links TO your website is of paramount importance, both in
getting indexed, and in ranking well in SERPs. Google explains its
technology in "Our Search: Google Technology":
"The heart of our software is PageRank?, a system for
ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page
and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. And while we
have dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect
of Google on a daily basis, PageRank continues to provide
the basis for all of our web search tools."
and its PageRank in "PageRank Explained"
"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the
web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of
an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets
a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for
page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume
of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the
page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are
themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make
other pages "important."
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank,
which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of
course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't
match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with
sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that
are both important and relevant to your search. Google
goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a
page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and
the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if
it's a good match for your query."
- ://www.google.com/technology/index.html
Establishing *relevant* or *important* links is as important to
ranking well as is creating a well-designed, user-friendly site with
rich, relevant content.
===========================
Establishing Links
===========================
As noted above, Google's PageRank is based on the number of pages
which link to your site.
"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." (SEE Google's
" How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google? - 2. Submitting Your site")
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A1
There are many practical ways of establishing links which are
beneficial to you in your endeavor to get respectable position
placement on search engines. These methods may take time, but they
also help in establishing credibility and help with your page rank.
Approach like-minded or complementary businesses about linking to your
site (with a reciprocal link from your own). This works without
harming search engine positioning or page rank.
A WORD OF WARNING:
==================
Google specifically warns "Don't participate in link schemes designed
to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid
links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own
ranking may be affected adversely by those links." (See Google's
Quality Guidelines - Basic principles)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
It stands to reason that what's good for Google, currently ranked as
the number one search engine is good rule to follow for other search
engines.
Articles on Link Popularity
===========================
Some excellent articles on how to establish the right kind of links
are available. Among them are:
"Finding Free Niche Directories", by By Kathryn Katz. Appeared in Jill
Whalen's "High Ranking Advisor #64", July, 2003 -
- http://www.highrankings.com/issue064.htm
Traffick's "Ten Steps to Building Links to Your Site", Craig Fifield - 5/3/2002
- http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=77
and "The Right Way to Improve Link Popularity", By Paul J. Bruemmer -4/14/2002 -
- http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=41
"Link Building Is Important", which discusses link building from A to
Z and also provides a good reference page with linking resources.
- http://www.linkingmatters.com/WhyLinkingIsImportant.html
The information contained in the above articles offer suggestions
which can be easily adapted for use on any website without resorting
to link farms. The differences in "good links" and those which may be
harmful are discussed, and the articles offer simple ways to get
started to the kind of linking search engines prefer.
=================================
The Importance of Design Basics -
User and Crawler Friendly Sites
=================================
Google offers guidelines to assist webmasters in user-friendly and
crawler-friendly design. In its "Design and Content Guidelines"
recommends the following:
"* Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links.
Every page should be reachable from at least one
static text link.
* Offer a site map to your users with links that point
to the important parts of your site. If the site map
is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break
the site map into separate pages.
* Create a useful, information-rich site and write pages
that clearly and accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your
pages, and make sure that your site actually includes
those words within it.
* Try to use text instead of images to display important
names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't
recognize text contained in images.
* Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive
and accurate.
* Check for broken links and correct HTML.
* If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL con-
tains a '?' character), be aware that not every search
engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static
pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the
number of them small."
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
The importance of good site design is also discussed by Shari Thurow,
one of the leading authorities in web design and search engine
optimization (and author of the book "Search Engine Visibility"),
recently made the following observation with regard to HTML:
"Clean HTML is absolutely imperative for search engine
indexing. Browsers are extremely forgiving when it comes
to displaying pages with "unclean" HTML (unclosed tags,
no quotation marks, etc.). Search engine spiders are
not so forgiving. Even something as simple as a missing
quotation mark on the <.a href="page.html"> can cause a
spider to not index text or a link." (See: Link Exchange
Digest, July 3, 2003, "Clean HTML")
- http://list.audettemedia.com/SCRIPTS/WA.EXE?A2=ind0307&L=led&D=1&T=0&H=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=282
She explained how errors in HTML can affect your ability to be
indexed, and ultimately, ranked.
Everything on each web page is important in ranking your site. Some
things, such as content and design, are weighted more heavily than
others. But every design item, every bit of coding works for you or
against you in how you are ranked, so the importance of good,
user-friendly and crawler-friendly design cannot be over emphasized.
================================
Metatags - What Good Are They?
================================
At one time, key word and description metatags were weighted heavily
in SERPs ranking. Unfortunately unscrupulous webmasters learned how to
"spam" the metatags to the point they are virtually ignored at this
point.
That is not to say that you shouldn't use either the key word metatags
or the description metatag.
1. Key Word Metatags
======================
Keeping the key words relevant to the content on each page helps keep
you focused on what terms you want that page to be found under. It
should help you focus on the terms you want to use in your content.
2. Description Metatags
=========================
Some directories will use the description tag for that snippet of
content in their listings. Even Google on occasion has used the
description tag in its SERPs, so it is important to word it well so
that description makes sense to the searcher.
The description tag is definitely NOT the place to throw in a bunch of
terms separated by commas or spaces. If that description is used as
the 'description' for search engines or directories, it has a tendency
to make the visitor pass right by that page listing.
Remember, the "purpose" of a description is to create a description of
what that page is about. Disjointed words tend to lead the visitor to
believe he'll just find a disjointed site.
3. Title Tag
===============
The Title Tag IS the most important tag in within your <head> </head> tags.
Again, don't try to fill it with a bunch of disjointed terms in an
attempt to rank better in SERPs. First of all, search engines are
getting smarter every day. Secondly, it may be determined to be an
attempt to spam or game the system, and search engines WILL penalize
you for that.
Put your Title Tag to work for you ... make it a title of a few words
which contain both the term under which you want to be found by a
searcher, and keep it short and to the point. It should really be
considered a "title" to the page's content.
Presumably, each page has unique content, so each page should also
contain a unique title tag, description tag and key word tag.
As you can see, the most important metatag is your title metatag. The
rest of them have little, if any, importance so far as SERPs rankings.
On the other hand, the fact they won't HELP you, cramming them with
words and phrases which are not relevant to the page's content can
conceivably hurt you in the long run. A word to the wise - don't do
it!
====================
Search Terms and
Key Words Research
====================
Ranking well in SERPs is a terrific feeling. Ranking well for search
terms your prospective customers are actually looking for is even
better.
Most experts will advise you that the first step in designing a
user-friendly site is to spend time researching the key words your
prospective customers are really using. And then make sure you use
those terms within the title tag, page title and content of each page.
It is always easier to do it right the first time than to have to go
back and "fix it" with rewriting and redesign.
If you've never done a key word search, you should - sometimes the
results may be very surprising. Understanding what your prospects are
looking for should be one of the main marketing strategies you adopt,
and you should recheck often enough to find out which of those terms
are delivering the best prospects to your own site - that is, what's
bringing them to your site, and what's converting those visitors to
customers.
Spending some time at Wordtracker -http://www.wordtracker.com - to
seek out all the related phrases you can, then writing copy based
around the best, most relevant terms are one of the best ways to
increase your ranking in SERPs.
Don't forget to include those words in your Title tags and within the
content of your website accordingly - and don't try to cram them all
into one page. Trying to cover several search terms and keywords on
one page of your website only dilutes your ranking.
Remember, search engines deliver a link to a page - not the whole
site. Some search engines may deliver the visitor to your home page,
but you can rank higher if you consider the terms, content and other
elements of individual pages and deliver the most relevant content on
each page.
When the competition heats up among search engines to deliver the most
relevant content, you don't want to be left behind by your competition
because they delivered more relevant content.
Think of it this way - your visitors are delivered because of a search
term ... not EVERY search term your site has to offer. Try to design
around those terms so that he can find the information easily. It
cannot be stated enough - design for your visitor, and that will make
it easy for search engines to find, index, and deliver your site in
SERPs.
================
Site Specifics
================
I see that your domain name is brand new (created January 22 of this
year). Even if you have submitted your site to Google, that's a scant
few days to get listed.
1. Design Elements
===================
There are certain elements that are considered basic to good HTML in
website design, which you'll want to add:
A. DOCTYPE Declaration
----------------------
DOCTYPES are essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web
documents in compliant browsers. It is also essential for the search
engines to understand and follow the coding contained on your pages.
DOCTYPE is explained and discussed further in "A List Apart",
- http://www.alistapart.com/stories/doctype/
and in Web Design Group's article, "Choosing a DOCtype",
- http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html
You do not have a DOCTYPE Declaration and you should add one to every
page on your site.
B. Title and Alt Tags
----------------------
Put those title and alt tags to work for you! Use key word rich words
in both. Instead of repeating "Stormwater Quality, Inc." in every
page's title, use descriptive words (terms you would like to be found
under) first in your page titles.
While you are using the alt tags on your navigation graphics, you
aren't using it on the graphics like the key, etc. This causes
problems with both search engine crawlers and with those who browse
with their graphics turned off.
Google recommends using a text only browser, which will give you a
very sobering look at your site (and what it looks like, to a very
close degree, to search engine crawlers):
"Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site,
because most search engine spiders see your site much as
Lynx would. If fancy features such as Javascript, ...
keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser,
then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling
your site." [From Google's Technical Guidelines]
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Adding descriptives to the alt tags makes your site more
'user-friendly' and will help with accessibility issues.
C. Accessibility
-----------------
I am sure you do not wish to appear insensitive to accessibility issues.
Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794
and 794d, set forth the minimum government standards for
accessibility.
Among these standards are such items as ALT and TITLE tags (as
discussed above), and website design which will enable those with
special needs to be able to access and understand your web site.
Since the government requires these standards on its own sites, using
them yourself adds to your credibility. It's one of those 'unspoken'
things that others understand YOU understand.
You might want to run each page of your site through Bobby, which will
give you a full context report of any portions of your site which do
not meet the minimum standards. If you make all the corrections
suggested, it will greatly enhance any search engine's ability to
crawl your website as well.
The Bobby analysis page can be found here:
- http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
2. Building Credibility
========================
You have a relatively new site talking about government standards and
requirements. It would behoove you to understand what your visitor is
looking for in order to establish credibility and trust.
There was a study conducted by Consumer WebWatch & Stanford University
- "How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?"
- http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/news/report3_credibilityresearch/stanfordPTL_abstract.htm
Some of the simplest ways to build trust are often overlooked such as:
User-Friendly Design ?
Design to deliver your information quickly and make it easy to access
the information your visitor seeks.
Include ALL the Information a Visitor Needs ?
Include important information about the products, including
warranties, return policies, etc., and consider them an unbreakable
contract with your customer. Especially include your relation to and
reason for sending your visitor to www.abtechindustries.com. This
transition is not only confusing, but it seems a bit misleading.
Get that information and relationship out up front and out there ...
otherwise, you've lost your visitor to someone else whose site seems
more straight-forward.
Establish a Privacy Policy ?
Sixty percent of online consumers are concerned with privacy issues
and the amount of information business collects; eighty percent are
concerned about the amount of information the government collects.
Establish an easy-to-understand privacy policy and make sure it is
available from every page on your site. Regard this as your contract
with your customers and never break it.
Contact Information ?
Make it easy to contact you by as many means as possible. The more you
can tell about yourself, the more confidence you instill. Is this
really *your* site, or are you just an affiliate for
abtechindustries.com?
Some of this information is already on your site, albeit not always
where one might expect to find it, but you should include those items
which are missing. The easier you make it to find and rely on you, the
easier it becomes to turn your visitors into your customers. Remember,
you are their conduit at this point, so you need to explain fully.
3. Aesthetics
==============
This is the part that you really should think about so far as how it
looks to your visitor.
While it may not make a difference to search engines, one can
reasonably assume that your reason for wanting to attract visitors is
to increase your customer base.
Toward that end, I would suggest several things such as:
1. Page Title
-------------
The page title (different from the title tag) appears to be
"Stormwater Quality, Inc." which appears in bold text and is
underlined.
As a rule underlining means a link to your visitors. I would suggest
getting rid of the underline or make it a link ... but at least on
your index.html page, don't underline that.
2. Centered Text
-----------------
A common mistake made by newer website builders is to center text;
however, on larger monitors with a higher resolution, centered text is
extremely difficult to follow.
The point is to make it EASY on your visitor. This means understanding
his perceptions and expectations.
Right justification is almost as difficult to read as centered text,
because web text doesn't kern or space well. A simple left justified
text is the easiest for your visitors to read.
3. Your Relationship to www.abtechindustries.com
-------------------------------------------------
You are linking to www.abtechindustries.com and mention their technology.
* Are you an affiliate?
* Are you their regional sales rep for a certain area?
* Are you a world-wide or national sales rep?
* Do you sell other products?
* Do you ship to customers or do they?
Make sure you explain to your visitors your exact relationship to
them. If you are an affiliate, copying their material almost verbatim,
remember that Google does not want to deliver a company's every
affiliate for search results. In fact, Google warns against creating
multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate
content in its "Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations",
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Good design not only builds trust, but good design principles also add
to your credibility.
With all the fraud on the internet, you should put as much in place as
possible to put your visitors at ease. It's not only good policy, it
helps turn those visitors into customers.
=============================
About those search terms
=============================
A look at your existing key word metatags shows a pretty broad and
almost impossible array of search terms to work your way to high
ranking in the SERPs.
For instance:
* Government Science & Technology
- about 5,160,000 results
* stormwater - about 982,000 results
* hydrocarbon - about 711,000 results
* opdes - about 1,330 results
* discharge - about 1,670,000 results
* pollution - about 8,920,000 results
* npdes - about 343,000 results
* tpdes - about 2,090 results
* environment - about 56,900,000 results
* sorbents - about 83,800
* sponge - about 1,650,000
* abtech - about 18,700
* water - about 98,000,000
* bmp - about 3,140,000
* skimmer - about 309,000
* petroleum - about 5,080,000
* oil - about 38,400,000
* bilge - about 339,000
* absorb - about, 2,090,000
No matter how you look at it, that is a lot of competition for the
terms you want your site to be found under.
How many of those abbreviations are those you want to reach - those
who may be your next customers - really using? What about people who
are looking for your product, but aren't using the abbreviations? The
answers to those questions will ultimately help you design and
optimize your pages, that is, each page of your site, with the exact
information your visitor is searching for.
I suspect you aren't even sure what terms your potential customers are
searching for - most people don't unless they spend a great deal of
time researching keywords.
As I mentioned above, I suggest spending some time at Wordtracker
-http://www.wordtracker.com - to seek out all the related phrases you
can, then write original content based around the best, most relevant
terms. Include those words in your Title tags and within the content
of your website accordingly. That will certainly help.
If nothing else, by visiting Wordtracker, you'll get an idea of what
search terms your potential customers are *really* using when it comes
to stormwater and filtering systems.
=============
Summary
=============
There is no shortcut to a listing in Google's index, but there are two
ways to get listed.
The first is to use Google's Add:URL page; the other is by links to
your page from relevant sources. Google offers plenty of information
on how to optimize your site for your visitors, which coincidently,
helps with your SERPs rankings.
If you want to show up immediately for some search terms, you may want
to look into Google's AdWords, which can get you listed almost
immediately; but even so, this will not help you get listed any faster
in Google's search index.
Metatags are not important for being found in search engines, page
content is. You do not want to have identical content to other
websites, as this could be conceived to be spam. Attempts to spam or
game the system will eventually get you penalized by Google and the
other search engines.
Basic HTML design elements, rich, relevant content and links TO your
site are ultimately worth more for SERPs rankings than any short-term
fixes you might try.
If you incorporate the above recommendations and suggestions into your
site's design, edit your content to reflect the relevant terms your
prospective customer would really use to find your service and
product, and establish links TO your site, you should have no problem
achieving your goals.
==========================================
Important Google Links For Your Reference
==========================================
I am including important links from Google's site. This information
will help you understand Google's goals and responsibility to the web
searcher (and not the webmaster or site owner).
Webmasters who follow the guidelines and avoid Google's "Thou shalt
nots" usually have no problem getting listed and showing up under the
search terms they desire.
* Google Today (absolutely the best information you
can read about the "how and why" of Google's results
- ://www.google.com/corporate/today.html
* How Do I Get My Site Listed on Google?
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html
* My Web Pages Are Not Currently Listed (a good 'primer'
on how and why Google works so well)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html
* PageRank Information (covers both Google's PageRank and
SERPS)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
* Webmaster Guidelines (contains both the dos and don'ts)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
* Google Facts & Fiction (can you buy your way to a
high ranking in Google?)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/facts.html
* Search Engine Optimizers (some good advice on what to look
for if you're going to hire a Search Engine Optimizer)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html
* Frequently Asked Questions (pretty much what it says, but
definitely worth wading through)
- ://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html
* Remove Content from Google's Index (just in case you feel
a burning need to start all over again)
- ://www.google.com/remove.html
================================
Other Sources of Information
================================
There is also good information from many of the top search engine
optimization experts, such as
* Detlev Johnson, Search Engine Guide
- http://www.searchengineguide.com/detlev/
* Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch
- http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
* Jill Whalen, High Rankings
- http://www.highrankings.com/
* Shari Thurow, Web Pro News (and quoted all over the Internet)
- www.webpronews.com/
who all have columns or newsletters to which you can subscribe and
keep abreast of the best way to use good content for better
positioning in search engine results.
In addition, Webmaster World - http://www.webmasterworld.com/ - has
discussion boards on most of the search engines. While some of the
discussions are anecdotal and/or questions for information, there is
usually enough discussion to keep abreast of what seems to be
happening.
There is an entire section devoted to Google at:
- http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/
It never hurts to keep track of the discussions; but remember, trying
to optimize for search engines only is like trying to hit a moving
target. You'll notice among the more experienced contributors to the
discussions - plus the SEO experts listed above - that there really is
no substitute for content, relevant links and good HTML.
Search terms ~
* shortcut to Google
* Google freshbot
* metatags
* stormwater
* search engine optimization
In addition, I relied on resources and information I use on a daily
basis in my regular course of business.
Good luck in optimizing and submitting your site.
Best Regards,
Serenata
Google Answers Researcher |
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