The process of recording where particular words occur. In the web context search engines crawl the web and make a list of which pages have particular words - this is the index.

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21
votes
5answers
3k views

Page appears indexed in Google but not findable for any search terms?

(Note that I am going to use screenshots here because I suspect writing about this will change the behavior over time.) If you do a Google search for uiviewcontroller best practices either with ...
15
votes
13answers
3k views

How do I get images containing text to be indexed by search engines?

I am building a small portfolio website for a friend, and being in advertising and all, she hates the standard fonts and wants everything written in a custom font. As CSS font-embedding is not really ...
9
votes
1answer
281 views

Why aren't search engines indexing my content?

This is a general, community wiki catch-all question and answer pair intended to address any questions concerning the reasons a site or specific site contents do not appear in search engine ...
9
votes
4answers
410 views

Is there any way to have search engines not index a certain section of a page?

I have Blogger setup with the Blog Archive panel shown on every page so that users can easily get to old posts. The problem is that it lists the title of each page in this panel, meaning that the ...
9
votes
5answers
533 views

How can I get Google to index my PDF documents?

We are having troubles getting Google to index the PDF files in our site. There are about 50 PDF and range in size for 20 KB to a little under two megs. They are not protected, can be read ...
8
votes
2answers
934 views

Indexing for Google scholar, which tags to use?

In the "Inclusion Guidelines for Webmasters" for Google Scholar is written under Indexing Guidelines: Google Scholar supports Highwire Press tags (e.g., citation_title), Eprints tags (e.g., ...
7
votes
4answers
411 views

Is it possible to 'trigger' indexing on a site?

We're launching a redeveloped site soon. Google has already indexed the site that we're going to replace, but the links that google indexed are no longer applicable, because the new site has a totally ...
7
votes
2answers
361 views

Does Google submit HTML forms?

I have a web page, say http://domain/purchase and in this page, I have a web form. User, on submitting this form (which has validation, both client-side and server side and won't be validated until ...
6
votes
2answers
229 views

Is using URL Rewritting the only way to make sure all pages are cached by Google?

If I keep the pattern (index.php?module=test&param=1) will pages be less likely to be indexed then if I use the pattern (test_param_1.html) ?
6
votes
8answers
2k views

How long did it take for your new website to be indexed by search engines [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why isn't my website in Google search results? I have added my website to the webmaster tools of some major search engines already, and supplied the sitemap for the ...
6
votes
1answer
730 views

About the <link rel=“index” /> tag

I'm trying to figure out how to use it. I understand that this tag tell Google which page is the root parent / parent of the current page. So, for example, on a page that's listing a product from a ...
6
votes
1answer
91 views

How to tell which URLs have fallen out of search engine index

I've had a few pages trimmed from google's indexed number on my sitemap in webmaster tools. How can I tell which pages have been dropped?
6
votes
4answers
224 views

Is it positive or negative for the average website to allow search engines to index user comments?

I've been trying to answer this question myself by researching and searching on google but I haven't been able to come with a final answer. I have some hypothesis I would like share anyway: The ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views

How to get tens of millions of pages indexed by Google bot?

We are currently developing a site that currently has 8 million unique pages that will grow to about 20 million right away, and eventually to about 50 million or more. Before you criticize... Yes, it ...
5
votes
5answers
185 views

What measures can be taken to make sure Google is aware of the existence of a newly created page?

Consider a website with a large number of pages. New pages are published regularly. When publishing a new page the website operator wants to get the newly created paged crawled/indexed in Google as ...
5
votes
3answers
4k views

Google is not indexing my Tumblr blog sufficiently

I have a 35-day-old blog on tumblr. I submitted it to Google using "Add your URL to Google" page about a month ago. However, when I search Google for the content of my blog using the following query, ...
5
votes
4answers
270 views

Will JavaScript (document.write) content be indexed by search engines?

I have an external JS file embedding some content inline in a web page. Basically it just does a document.write("my content") via a script tag and loaded externally with the src attribute. Any ...
5
votes
1answer
114 views

Will history of a domain affect rankings for new site?

Bought the domain and initially parked the domain. Google did not rank the domain because it was parked, it has however began to index in the last day or so. My question is will the fact that the site ...
5
votes
2answers
154 views

Easy way to identify pages which are index, but not linked to on my site

I'm just wondering if there is an easy way to find out what pages Google has indexed, that are not directly linked on my site, for example: www.mysite.com/skype.html originally had a link in my site ...
4
votes
3answers
779 views

How long does it take for Google Webmasters to index site after submitting sitemap? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why isn't my website in Google search results? I have submitted my website today into Google search using Google Webmasters using sitemaps. The status on the ...
4
votes
2answers
334 views

Difference between “/” at end of URL and without “/” [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Does it make a difference if your url ends in a trailing slash or not? Why treat these as different URLs? I am doing a 301 redirect in my WP application using ...
4
votes
2answers
495 views

Redirecting URLs when launching a new website - how to avoid dropping page rank

i have over 100 urls in my website which i need to redirect: E.g. /page/how-to-bake-chocolate-cookies/ will redirect to /cookies/how-to-bake-chocolate-cookies/ /page/contact/ will redirect to ...
4
votes
2answers
187 views

Is content inside IE conditional comments indexed by search engines?

Although I'm aware of the various methods to show content only to users of a specific IE version, I was wondering if using conditional comments would have an effect on the way my site is indexed. If I ...
4
votes
2answers
174 views

How to determine why a page is banned by Google

There is a website which is correctly indexed by Google. And there is a page which was correctly indexed initially but after a couple of week was removed from the Google index. Most probably a page ...
4
votes
2answers
155 views

Where does the Google `site:` operator for site-specific searches get its information?

I have read in many places that one should use Google Webmaster preferably to the site: search operator. However, I would like to know where the site: operator gets its information from? Here is my ...
4
votes
3answers
128 views

My archives are beating my current content, how do I stop from competing against myself?

I've inherited a site with about 15,000 pages going back 16 years. Often current events are outranked by previous events. What are the best techniques to make sure that I'm not fighting against ...
4
votes
1answer
66 views

Pre-Launch Indexing - Is it good to posting on-topic content for indexing prior to launch?

Is it worthwhile to put up some content, sans design, just for the purpose of getting indexed on the topic/product of the site that will be launched. For example: Domain = ...
4
votes
2answers
208 views

How does Google find a domain with no links to it?

I recently registered a new domain, pointed it to my existing server, and set up a minimal page just saying "test" and nothing else. I just discovered tonight that the page is already indexed in ...
4
votes
2answers
983 views

Understanding Google Webmasters Tools Sitemaps Information

So, I'm an 'avid' user of google webmaster tools and analytics. I'm building an e-commerce site, all with original product descriptions and a base of 'useful' industry-relevant content. I generated ...
4
votes
2answers
131 views

Index a 301 Redirect to help a user locate a page

On a site I'm currently working on, there is a 301 Redirect to redirect a nice short URL for users to type in when trying to find a particular piece of content - e.g. www.mydomain.com/apply -> ...
4
votes
1answer
65 views

Can a sitemap index file reference sitemap files under different domains?

My company owns several domain names. We also host websites for our users at their custom domains. Our domains: company.com product1.com product2.com Users's domains: user1.com user2.com ...
3
votes
4answers
93 views

Stopping Google index some web pages I have

I have some web pages that google has indexed. Now I added a robots.txt file to exclude them but should I also add a “noindex” tag and if so then how can I best add this?
3
votes
3answers
167 views

How sitemap.xml influences indexation?

If a page is missing in sitemap.xml (but crawable through HTML hyperlinks), may this cause it not to be indexed? (I mean it would be indexed without sitemap, but not indexed with sitemap because it is ...
3
votes
2answers
153 views

Is it possible to find out whether one given page has been indexed?

When one submits sitemaps in Google Webmaster, Google may not index all pages of your site/blog. Is there a way to find out whether one specific page belonging to the sitemap has been indexed or not? ...
3
votes
2answers
72 views

Seo Fake backlinking from other sites

The title might be a little bit confusing. Well, I noticed that someone had used a page's URL for backlinking or indexing his keywords. This is what he did: The normal url: http:// ...
3
votes
3answers
187 views

Do wordpress websites get indexed quicker by SE than a regular website?

I registered a couple of domains with the names of categories of products we sell. I then installed wordpress in one of those domains and played around with it for a bit, and left it alone for about a ...
3
votes
1answer
674 views

Search Engine Indexing of a Database-Driven Website

Suppose I have a MySQL whose rows are dog breeds and whose columns are properties of the breeds (e.g. coat color). The purpose of the site is to allow users to query the database with questions like ...
3
votes
2answers
331 views

How can I get Google to not index archive pages in Blogger?

I'm using Blogger with a custom domain. When I use the Google search site:example.com, the top results are in the form Example: 2010-01-10. These are archive pages that Blogger generates. My relevant ...
3
votes
1answer
128 views

Google's microdata for product images which aren't displayed in the page?

My internet shop displays thumbnails of products' images, and I see that these thumbnail are (slowly) being indexed by Google. I want also full images to be indexed. (I've seen some other questions on ...
3
votes
3answers
207 views

How to let Google know that content on the page has just changed?

I'd never thought of such a problem in the whole SEO spectrum before I considered launching my own website. Imagine that I have a website which is updated once per month and Google spider knows ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views

Google webmaster Index Status. Total Indexed=0

I previously changed my domain from www.visualstudiolearn.blogspot.com to www.visualstudiolearn.com. I had around 300 posts with the previous domain name and most of them where showing up on Google. ...
3
votes
2answers
158 views

Changed my Blog's url: what next?

I started working on a blog from last month. My blogs URL was quite big (for ex. http://my-old-long-url-blog.blogspot.com). I used it because i thought having 2-3 keywords in my url will help me.(i am ...
3
votes
2answers
192 views

sitemap.xml for huge online store

I'm running online store with 30,000+ products (having unique urls) which are updated every day. I want google to index my products faster. Now crawler index ~500 pages/day (reports from google ...
3
votes
1answer
87 views

How to allow Google to index protected content?

I'm working on my site and as it require users to log in it will be hard to Google to index the sites, because to see 90% of the content you have to be online. So I've made a script which looks for ...
3
votes
1answer
85 views

How can I force a certain URL for Google to use in search results?

Each page on my site can be accessed by a shortened URL and normal "long" URLs. The shortened URL redirects to the long URL and the long URL includes an optional title that's not parsed (much like on ...
3
votes
1answer
111 views

Do search engines index text contained in SVG elements?

Example: <svg><text>Hello World</text></svg>?
3
votes
4answers
664 views

How quickly does Bing index URLs submitted through Webmaster Tools?

In Bing's Webmaster Tools, there is a Submit URLs page that allows you to "Submit URLs that are currently not in the Bing index or that should be reindexed due to recent changes." Does anyone know ...
3
votes
1answer
53 views

Google Webmaster Tools Index Status 0 for one year

I've read this topic with answers but they do not address why zero for one year? but other areas in Google Webmaster Tools report 400 URL indexed. Google Webmaster Tools Index Status Only 2 Indexed. ...
3
votes
2answers
107 views

Traffic fall after a server problem

I have a website from which I analyse the traffic with Google analytics. Day after day the traffic (mainly from Google SE) incresed until I get a problem with my server. For one day the server has ...
3
votes
1answer
108 views

Indexing dynamic loading page

Does Google index dynamic loading page? For example index.html <div id="dynamic_message"></div> index.html after few seconds <div id="dynamic_message">Hello Google, do you see ...

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