How long to get a Community indexed?

New to the forum!

[jtatarin]

Hey guys.. been reading as much as I can from here and a lot of other online resources.. im 18 years old ive been building websites since I was in 5th grade. Dont ask me why but its always been something I have interested in.. In the past (as a hobby) i have built a few relatively successful sites. Of course these sites were on free servers but I had a lot of hits and If i was older I probably could have done something with it. Anyways now that I am older I'm trying to start a a website/business with my buddy. We both have put some money in to it and wed like to go as far with it as possible.

[snip]

We are an online community where teens can become a member, post pictures, make profiles, meet friends, search for users, post comments, rate eachother etc. We have been online for only about a week already averaging around 100k monthly hits (non unique) I have paid for some SEO.. SEO being something new to me I wasnt really sure what i should get.. My SEO company suggested we used the "community" keyword.. Anyways how long does it take to be added to the search results for community. I have been indexed for just a few days now... Because our site is entirely free to the user we wanted to rely on hits/clicks for revenue (if we get any haha) any suggestions. Thoughts/helps most appreciated!

[edited by: pageoneresults at 1:48 pm (utc) on July 2, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed URI Reference - Please refer to TOS [/edit]

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, jtatarin!

There are lots of issues in your post, but here are my thoughts on a couple of them:

1) The length of time to get your site indexed depends on lots of factors - how many good links there are to your site, how much content you have, and whether any impediments to spidering exist (e.g., session IDs, redirects, scripted links, etc.). Of course, being "indexed" (getting your content into a search engine's database) is different than actually appearing in search results that generate traffic.

2) "Community" is a descriptive word, but would teens actually use it in a search phrase? I don't really know the answer to that question, but I'd suggest doing some keyword research. I'd think that themed words related to your target audience and their interests might do better, but that's just my opinion.

Good luck with your new community!

[jtatarin]

Page Rank and link farms.. What are some ways to boost up my page rank. I have been indexed for about a week now and my PR is 4. I have no links linking to my site yet. I wanted to add a links page and exchange links accordingly.. Id like to know how do i draw the line between a simple/ helpful links page or a link farm penalized by google. Whats the difference. I know having links point to your site boosts PR values but where do i draw the line. How do i learn more about this?

[rogerd]

jtatarin, start by reading the Link Development [webmasterworld.com] forum here - there are more important things than PR, but a good linkage plan will help a lot. Reciprocal linkage isn't the only approach - think directories, one-way links, etc. Note that the forum links you asked about are typically one-way links, i.e., you won't be linking back to that forum.