5 Ways to Get Your Website Indexed

Simon Slade
by Simon Slade 26 Aug, 2014

 

 

Websites don't have all their content on one page because it would be detrimental for SEO, visitors' fingers might fall off from scrolling for days and the page would be difficult to navigate, among other reasons. Therefore, all websites have multiple pages with useful information. For SEO purposes, it's important that search engines index all Web pages with important material.

 

Check the Website's Indexing Status

To check the indexing status, go to Google or Bing and search for "site:" immediately followed by the domain name. The results will show which pages have been indexed. If not all the website's pages appear, it's time to follow these five steps to get all the pages indexed.

 

 

1. Get links on other websites.

Search engine spiders tirelessly wander the Internet following links and indexing their findings. Therefore, the most straightforward method for getting a website indexed is to have another website link to it. A couple of caveats though: The linking website has to be indexed by the search engines, and the link can't have a "nofollow" tag if Google is to index it.

 

Without adequate backlinks, a website most likely has weak PageRank. Consequently, the search engine spiders may not bother indexing all the pages. The more quality backlinks to the website, the better the PageRank and the more "energy" the search engine spiders will expend exploring the website.

 

Don't get backlinks just for the homepage either; go for links for the subsequent pages as well. Called "deep linking," this strategy essentially helps the search engine spiders go beyond the website's front door and also explore the website's back door, dining room window and doggie door. The PageRank is then filtered to all the Web pages, increasing their likelihood of also being indexed.

 

2. Create a Twitter profile.

The search engine spiders love hanging out on Twitter, so creating a Twitter profile may help increase the chances of being noticed, too (albeit social-SEO is still controversial). After creating a profile, find some active members of the Twitter community to follow. This arrangement provides a link back to the Twitter profile, triggering the search engines to possibly explore it. Then tweet a link to the website, and the search engine spiders should be crawling the website in no time.

 

3. Practice PageRank sculpting.

PageRank sculpting is a website design method for driving as much PageRank to important pages as possible, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will be indexed. Don't be intimidated by the name; PageRank sculpting is really nothing more than making sure the most important pages are well-linked and easily accessed.

 

For example, consider a website that hasn't been PageRank sculpted. It has a homepage and five typical pages linked to it: about page, privacy policy, contact us, reviews and articles. The articles page contains links to dozens of articles, which make up the primary content of the website. The website owner expects that most of the traffic will arrive via one of these articles because they've been optimized for especially popular keywords.

 

But because the website hasn't been PageRank sculpted, the PageRank is sent to the homepage and filtered down from there. It's split between the five Web pages and then that fifth of the original PageRank is divided among the articles, giving each one very little PageRank juice. Without PageRank sculpting, the articles won't receive substantial PageRank and likely won't be indexed unless the website owner is able to secure considerable backlinks for the homepage, thus providing enough PageRank juice to be filtered all the way down to the articles.

 

As a much better alternative, the website owner can PageRank sculpt to drive the search engine spiders directly to the articles page, emphasizing its importance and giving the PageRank juice a direct route to the articles.

 

4. Publish unique content.

No ifs, ands or buts about it: Content is king. The search engine spiders actively seek to deliver the best content to users, so if the content on a website is duplicated on more than one Web page or is the same as that of another website, the search engine spiders will most likely ignore the website and flag it as unauthentic.

 

To attract the search engine spiders, ensure that at least 25 percent, and preferably 50 percent, of a website's content is unique. Even if the content is sourced from Private Label Rights (PLR), reword it to demonstrate authenticity to the search engine spiders.

 

5. Create a sitemap.

Links direct search engine spiders to the website, so a Web page with multiple links leading to it is going to be much easier for the bots to find than a Web page with only one obscure link leading to it. Another method of increasing the links to that Web page is by creating a sitemap. Sitemaps help the search engine spiders locate Web pages by listing every single page contained within the website. They also can include important SEO information, such as the level of importance of the page, signaling to the spiders which pages they should give the most attention.

 

Employ these five simple steps, and the search engine spiders should be on your site in no time, with interested readers soon to follow.