Updating keywords

How long does it take for a search engine to recognize them?

[princess]

I'm curious. If I update my website, with new keywords, and redo the wording within the website--using new keywords (in order to have a more specific search term. i.e. "keyword" to "location keyword"). How long does it take for a search engine to recognize the changes? Do I have to wait for, say, the January Google update?

[rogerd]

Princess, it depends mostly on the spidering cycle. Once the pages are spidered, the revised content will probably be reflected in the next update. (Google "Fresh" content may get indexed faster.) Google is quite regular about its monthly spidering and update cycles, other SEs are less so.

Watch your server logs to see which spiders visit the revised pages.

[princess]

This may sound stupid, but how do I check my server logs? What am I looking for when I look at them?

[andreasfriedrich]

[1. ]This may sound stupid, but how do I check my server logs?
[2. ]What am I looking for when I look at them?

Depends on your web host and what you are looking for.

1. If you are using a shared host or managed webserver then there probably is some way to download your server logs somewhere in the management area.

2. Look for GoogleBot or any other UA string in your logfiles. To learn more about log files have a look at this page: [httpd.apache.org...]

Andreas