What is URL Indexing?

URL indexing basically means that the major search engines know that your website exists and they can find you which means that others can find you too. With out URL Indexing you are invisible to search engines. You must not start a “pay per click” advertising campaign for your site until your site is indexed, if you do your site may be banned permanently from search engine listings.

Checklists

Completion of checklists ensure that there are minimal or no errors on your website. Errors on your site can lead to low rankings on search engines and may make you practically invisible online.

Basic checklist – You may choose all or only some to be a part of your website.

• Web design completed
• Administration pages completed (site map page, contact us page, about page, terms and conditions page and privacy page)
• Information pages completed (on your topic, atleast 2 pages
• Blog page installed and functional
• Links tested – test all links are working on your site
• RSS feed tested (real simple syndication)

As a general rule search engines are not known for ranking sites well if there are errors. Some of the errors I speak of are not obvious, they may be a slight errors in the code which lies in the background of your website and is not visible to the eye when you look at your site. Other errors can include linking problems which can be easily checked by you by clicking on your own links to make sure they work and take you to the desired page. There are a number of tools available online to help you check the quality of your site, point out the errors so they can be fixed. The easiest way to gain access to the best tools and checklists is through involvement in a educational affiliate online program that can show you the step by step process. It can seem a complicated process to begin with but once you have gone through the step by step process a few times it is much easier.

Submit your URL – Domain Name

When your website has been checked and you have corrected any mistakes or errors, all you need to do is submit your URL to the search engines. Your URL is the web name of your site address for example:- www.yourdomainnamehere.com. Visit the search engines where you want your website listed and type in to the search feature “Submit URL” you will then be taken to a page where you can submit your domain name for listing.

It is best to Submit your URL with all of the major search engines. You will need to register your details to submit your URL with most of these services but it is free to do so. Online there are a number of services both paid and free who will list your site and submit your URL to search engines. Some will boast that they will list your site with hundreds of search engines, I believe that this is unnecessary as the three major players are easy to use and you can do it yourself. For example Google currently holds 60-70% of the market share.

How long does Indexing Take?

It can take weeks or even months for your site to be listed which is also called URL indexing even after you have followed the above steps, but there is a quicker way to get your domain URL indexed really quickly. This is a little known secret but very effective.

How to get Indexed Quickly!

Set your site up with an RSS feed. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication and allows visitors to your site to see new information pages or blog posts from their Google or Yahoo accounts. This is usually already included in Word Press themes if you are using wordpress for your web/blog design.

Step 1

First, sign up for a Google Account (if you haven’t arleady got one) register for a gmail account and from the gmail screen go to the top left hand corner and click on “Reader”. You are now ready to add your RSS feed of your website or blog. Go back to your website or blog and click on the RRS feed icon. This is usually and orange icon with white curved markings. It should automatically ask if you would like to add the RSS feed to Google reader.

Step 2

Authorize this and then go to you Google reader and check that the RSS feed is working. If it is not then you will need to add a testing post to the blog section of your website and try again. Sometimes only the blog section of your site is available for RSS feed and some times pages, blog posts and comments can be available via RSS.

Step 3

Next, register for a Yahoo7 Account and add the RSS feed from your site to your home page of Yahoo7. You do this by going to the top left corner of the screen and click on the “Add content” button and load your RSS feed which will look something like this www.yourdomainname.com/feed/. You can find out the exact details and URL address of your RSS feed from Google reader.

Step 4

Go back to Google reader page and click on your site feed from the left hand side bar. Once loaded go to the top right hand corner of the screen and click on “show details”. At the top left of the page you will see something like :-

Feed URL: http://yourdomainname.com/feed/. Copy this ( http://yourdomainname.com/feed) and put it in the Add Content section of your Yahoo7 homepage.

That’s It!

What happens next is almost magical. The search engine spiders and bots will see that there are people interested enough in your site to bookmark it and add your site to their reader pages. Search engine spiders and bots will follow the links made by others (which is actually just you) and they really like this and will report the information to the search engines. This method allows for URL indexing within a few days and only a few hours in some instances. The good news is that as soon as your URL is indexed you can move forward with your search engine optimization and other internet marketing strategies to start making money.