Web Crawler/Updates

Need advice

[benji]

How do I find out what search engines crawl my site? Is there a program for this that I need to buy? I see that several people make statements such as "I saw that Google visited my site today". How do I find out?

In December, I was listed in Yahoo under a key word search. I made a small change to my index page, went back to do the search under the same key word, and my site was nowhere to be found. Yahoo did not pick up my site again until January 1st. NOW I AM AFRAID TO ADD ANY OTHER INFORMATION TO MY SITE UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH. Can someone tell me why my site drops off the Yahoo site when I make a very small change to it?

[jdMorgan]

benji,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

We are looking at our site logs and statistics, usually available through ftp, and sometimes available via http. Ask your web host how to access them. If you are hosted on a "free hosting service" they may not exist - one good reason to get away from free hosting.

As to why a change on your site makes it disappear, I have no idea. Changes to Web sites are generally not detected for one or two months minimum, and up to six months in some cases. If you expect changes to be reflected immediately, you will be rather disappointed...

A special case is Google's "fresh bot" - which will sometimes reflect changes to your site within a few days. That is the fastest feedback I know of for testing changes, but you must have a reasonably well-linked-to and high PageRank page in order for freshbot to visit you.

Try using the WebmasterWorld site search link above to find more info on freshbot, and any subjects that interest you; Many questions have been asked and discussed previously, and there is a wealth of information here for you.

Enjoy!
Jim