Indexing slowdown, supplemental pages

Is this normal?

[dickbaker]

I went public with a new site on May 25th. At that time, the site had just 65 pages.

By the end of June, Google had indexed about 47 of those pages. I now have about 90 pages of content, but the indexing process has slowed down. I've checked all the datacenters, and they've been stuck at about 58 pages for the last one to two weeks.

It's been three years since I launched a new site, so I don't recall if the indexing process stalled at some point. Is this normal?

Also, I did a site:... search today, and noticed that most of my pages are supplemental. I'm assuming that's normal for a new site.

As I've been adding content, I've also been getting links from reputable sites within my niche.

Any comments much appreciated.

[dickbaker]

OK, now it's getting weirder. Before, some of the datacenters showed 63 pages indexed. Earlier today I noticed that the maximum was 58. Now they're all at 56.

I didn't know that Google had a reverse gear.

[Ducain]

I'm in the middle of a similar situation.

I launched a new site about a month ago, and I've got probably 60 or so pages, and for this new site, I absolutely agonized over the SEO, trying to do enough, but not too much. All the pages have clean links, and are static pages, nicely linked throughout.

At this point, after a month, I still have only 14 pages indexed, and I have no idea why this would be. The good thing is that none of the pages are supplemental, but I would have thought a nice layout with linked static pages would encourage full indexing.

It's a learning process, but the hardest part of this whole business if knowing if you're learning...or just beating your head against the Google wall.

*walks away with headache*

[tedster]

In most cases, it still takes both time and backlinks to get fully indexed. I helped a friend develop a site last spring, and he launched 94 pages 6 weeks ago. For the first four weeks only 8 urls were indexed -- still, his home page debuted at #6 for his keyword and never wavered, probably because he launched with 4 solid backlinks from long-established domains in his field. Then in week 5, his site jumped to 26 urls indexed: 12 supplemental and 14 in the regular index.

I think that's a good and expectable result, unless you're launching on some extremely hot topic, with lots of media overage and naturally exploding backlink numbers.

Take heart - from everything you say you've set yourself up for success if you keep on plugging. Remember that Brett's classic Google post [webmasterworld.com] is about a "successful site in 12 months."

[dickbaker]

Thanks for the hand-holding, Tedster.

Back in 2004, I was frustrated with the slow progress of Google indexing my new site.

After taking a look at the stats reports for that site from 2004, Google is crawling my 2007 site more rapidly, and indexing the pages more rapidly.

In the interim, I've taken several established sites, done even just a little bit of SEO on them, and have gotten them first-page on Google in a matter of weeks.

I guess I just need to chalk it up to impatience.

[dickbaker]

Just an update, although I feel like I'm talking to myself.

My new site went public exactly two months ago. Today my site made the leap from no PR to a PR of 0.

That may seem like nothing to some folks, but I remember 2004, when it took months to even achieve that much.

Google has now indexed 68 of the 90 pages I currently have on the site. I'm adding pages almost daily, so Google is running behind. But, compared to 2004, it's a big improvement.

If, by the end of the year, I can have 500+ pages of good content, I'll be in better shape than I was with my 2004 site. And that site is doing exceptionally well today.

My new site is in a fiercely competitive niche, so I was expecting slower progress than I had in 2004. Instead, I'm seeing better progress.

I'd be interested to hear the experiences of other webmasters who've just launched new sites.

[tedster]

Even on long-established sites, it seems that Google just shifted the number of pages returned in the site: operator, and in many cases, it's slightly down.