Google remains the globally dominant search engine, with a market share of around 60% (compared to just 8% for Microsoft’s Bing and 4% for Yahoo). So, if it’s still not picking up your website, all your SEO efforts will be in vain.
If you’ve done everything you can to be indexed by Google, and it’s just not working, you may be scratching your head in extreme frustration. Review your indexing efforts so far and bear the following factors in mind:
New site
If your site is new and has only just come online, it will take a while to be indexed by the search engines; it doesn’t happen straight away. So be patient, and while you’re waiting, make sure the links on your sitemap (assuming you have one, which you certainly should) are functioning properly, because Google and the other search engines will use these to crawl your site and index your pages. Also, in your Google Webmaster Tools account, check that you’ve correctly submitted your various URLs – as many as 500 can be submitted in a week.
Duplicate content
Go through the content on your site and see if there’s any duplicate content – where different URLs return more or less the same thing. If that’s happening, it’s likely Google won’t index your site and will just give up. If you have duplicate content, delete pages that are similar to others.
Many people use WordPress as their content management system; it’s simple and extremely easy to use. If you are, check your privacy settings, because if they’re turned on, you won’t be picked up and indexed. You’ll find them in the Settings section of your Admin area.
Slow loading time
Also, find out how long it takes your site to load. If it takes ages, Google won’t like it; it wants quick-loading sites that enhance the user experience. So if yours is dragging, fix it. There’s a variety of other reasons why Google may not yet have indexed your site, including setting your domain to both www.yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com, robots.txt issues that block your URLs, and crawl errors, among others.
Taking continual action and getting indexed by Google will make the world of difference to your online success.
