Google and RSS feeds

[webbyfro]

Question: Can the fact that my new site uses RSS feed as part of the page be turning away the Google spider? (To clarify, I've been online for more than 2 weeks and Google hasn't bothered to index me yet, despite the fact that I have some incoming links from high-ranking sites, and a ton of links from a REALLY high-ranking site.)

I read on Google's page that sometimes their spider ignores sites with what they call "dynamically generated" pages for various reasons. (The full explanation is here: [google.com...] ) The RSS feed is part of my main page, but I've removed it and try to see if Google will FINALLY crawl my site already.

<snip>

Thanks.

[edited by: lawman at 3:41 pm (utc) on June 22, 2005]
[edit reason] TOS 21 [/edit]

[BillyS]

webbyfro -

My site is made using Mambo - a CMS that uses php and mysql to create a dynamic site. I use mod-rewrite to change to SEF urls.

On my home page I have four flavors of RSS and these are not SEF urls. Google has no problem indexing my site.

For the last two weeks, Google has been pretty busy with the Bourbon update. They may be holding off on spidering new sites. You might want to wait another week and see if the bot comes around.

[webbyfro]

Argh, I hope you're right about them being too busy to spider new sites. It's driving me nuts that they haven't even indexed me yet after almost 3 weeks of being online.

[Kim_R]

Are you using Java or PHP to display the RSS feeds? Google won't see the java but eats the PHP right up without a problem.

[twist]

despite the fact that I have some incoming links from high-ranking sites, and a ton of links from a REALLY high-ranking site.

Just curious how a site that has only been online for 3 weeks already has a ton of links from a REALLY high-ranking site. What kind of really high ranking site creates tons of links to new sites?

:( I want a really high ranking site to put a ton of links to my site. Then again, who doesn't.

[Reid]

here is some top secret info

want to get listed in google right away?

google sitemaps

[webbyfro]

>>Just curious how a site that has only been online for 3 weeks already has a ton of links from a REALLY high-ranking site. What kind of really high ranking site creates tons of links to new sites?<<

Really good friends/fellow webmasters in the same industry. :)

[webbyfro]

@Reid,

>>want to get listed in google right away?
google sitemaps<<

I read about this, but there seems to be a lot of people warning against it. That, and the whole thing seems a bit complicated to a non-tech savvy person like me. Is it? If I don't get indexed by the end of this month, I might give it a try.

[Reid]

That, and the whole thing seems a bit complicated to a non-tech savvy person like me. Is it?

I havn't used it myself but from what I see in the threads about it, it causes a re-index, can be very good for dynamic sites who are having trouble getting pages listed quickly.
Basically you are sending google a list of URL's that you want in the index - a sitemap.
It's in .xml format and there are parameters you can manually set for each URL (by editing the xml file)
There is also a 'sitemap generator' that you can use on your site - it will spit out a sitemap.xml file for you.
There is also an 'easy sitemap' (an easy button).
Just follow the instructions provided by google, the whole idea of it is to 'make it easier'. That's about the extent of my knowledge on it.

[webbyfro]

Thanks for the suggestion, Reid. I read up on it some more and have submitted a sitemap to Google. Three hours later they "downloaded" my sitemap, but I don't know if that means they've crawled my site yet or not.

[Reid]

from what I see on other threads it takes a few days but works well.

[edgeportals]

I used Google Sitemaps when I redev'led our site. Within a day it had downloaded and crawled the new site (which hadn't been crawled for weeks). Worked great, crawls my site every other day now.

Their Help and FAW sections tell you how to make the sitemap AND that submitting here will in no way effect your rankings or PR.

[webbyfro]

Hmm, two days, and no listing yet...