How Do I Invite Googlebot?

No visits from googlebot in my logs

[kriskd]

I run a PR4 site and enjoy checking my logs for the site. I have never had a googlebot visit. I use the robots meta tags and have them set for index and follow.

My mom who uses the sames hosting service as I do (so I know how to check her logs!) runs a PR5 site and has googlebot all over it! The only meta tag she uses is the keyword tag. I should probably get on her about adding a description tag, but that's a different story. :-)

Any thoughts? Any additional info I need to provide to get some ideas on why googlebot isn't visiting my site?

Thanks,
Kris

[CCowboy]

Change something in your pages title tag and get some incoming links with keyword anchor text!

[newsphinx]

I used to fail to find GoogleBot in my WebTrends generated logs. However, if I find Googlebot in my raw logs, it's there. So maybe you are experiencing the same problem. It's really hard to believe that your PR4 site not visited by GoogleBot.

[kriskd]

tbear --

I am very pleased with where my site appears on the search engines so I agree google has visited, I just remain perplexed as to why I don't see googlebot in my logs and it's all over my mom's logs. Recall we use the same hosting service and I view her stats the same way I view mine.

I also agree with you I shouldn't stress over this tiny matter and continue to work on content, but it brought on some good discussion. I added some fresh content yesterday (I have the most time on the weekends) and did some minor tweaking of the site today.

Key_Master --

I am using server logs. I can get to my logs via a sub-directory of my main site. The logs are not password protected.

Thanks everyone!

Kris

[Key_Master]

kriskd,

Ouch! Trolling through Webalizer stats gives me a headache. :)

If it's the site in your profile, Googlebot is listed at #366 in User Agents. It has hit your site 16 times so far this month. You also have 4 hits from the Mediapartners-Google bot. Hope this is of some help.

[kriskd]

Key_Master,

Thanks! I guess I wasn't reading things correctly. Could you possibly stick mail me and tell me what you did to determine this?

Thanks,
Kris

[Michael Weir]

kriskd - I skimmed through this topic and I don't think anybody has mentioned this. Is your site indexed in the Open Directory Project? I launched a site a few months ago and one of the first things I did was get my site in their directory. A couple weeks after the submission I noticed that my site had a PR3 and was pulling rather good results in google. I checked ODP and sure enough I was already listed in there.

So, if you havn't already submitted to the ODP, do it at once! :-)

[kriskd]

Michael Weir,

Thanks for joining the thread and your input.

No, my site is not in ODP and I have submitted it several times. I have even tried to become and editor for my category and it was closed for new editors. If I recall correctly, the last time my category was updated was March and my site was launched under it's old domain name in late April and the current domain name in June.

Key_Master,

I reviewed my weblogs again, and this time I did find googlebot had been visiting. Not sure if it was new since I last checked or if I just wasn't seeing the obvious which is entirely possible!

Kris

[Michael Weir]

kriskd,
you're welcome! :)

....so are you not in the ODP then? Picking the right category and description for your submission info is very crucial. Some people have a hard time getting into dmoz but I've never had any problems. *knock on wood*

[dragonlady7]

>Pretty good for a 62-year-old woman, huh?

My grandmother, at 86, was an avid emailer before her current illness, which has made it difficult for her to sit at a computer. I did just get a long email from her today about a project she and I are working on.
My great-aunt (sister of my other grandmother), at 84, has an email address that starts with "cybergranny" and goes all over the Internet and sends silly forwards to her brood of grandchildren, and now to her sister's children and grandchildren now that that grandmother has passed away.

So, old ladies on the Internet aren't a huge demographic, but they're certainly there...

As far as getting Googlebot to visit, I started a thread elsewhere (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/16837.htm) because it looked to me, in my logs, like it was actually following searchers to my site! I don't know whether that was coincidence or not. I do know Altavista decides what pages to re-crawl and refresh based on whether they get clicked on in the results pages... that was a Big Hint floating around a while ago, and I have no idea about how it works now. I just remember reading it.

So it's possible that you could encourage the bot to visit... Certainly doesn't hurt to try, as long as you're not using automated scripts that generate unfair amounts of traffic on the SE's servers.
I don't have the version of the toolbar with happy and sad faces on it, so I don't know about that.

Well, I'm glad to see that you do have Googlebot visiting. Perhaps that'll have to remain a mystery as well. *shrug*

[southpaw12]

[i]Umm... Do you mean to say that older women are otherwise useless, helpless, and clueless?

Tell that to Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Dole, Carly Fiorina, Barbara Walters, Martha Argerich, etc... [i]

Useless, helpless and clueless DOES describe Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer and Barbara Walters!

[kriskd]

Hey all --

I'm the original poster and I figured out what I was doing wrong and why I wasn't seeing googlebot as a visitor on my site logs and why I did see it on my mom's log.

Because I get many more visitors to my site, I had to click "view all" on my logs to get the entire list of visitors beyond the top 20. Sure enough, there it was! It appears that googlebot *is* mom's main visitor to her site!

Kris

[Michael Weir]

Well that's just silly! I'm glad you finally figured it out thoug! :)

[benc007]

Should I invite GoogleBot from a site with a PR4 to my client's site that has Zero PageRank and ZERO backlinks?

I am guessing my client may be penalized, but I am very uncertain. Would linking to my client's site from a PR4 site cause the PR4 site to be penalized as well?

[Visi]

To get googlebot to visit...leave out the google milk..and google cookies. We find this an effective attraction on most days. Only when the "slurp" bot comes along and gobbles up the google goodies do we see a problem.

Can you tell its been a normal Monday?:)