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We launched the new version of our site, including much more content, and transferred it to a new server at the end of October, with many incoming links from other sites in place from the original version. Within a couple of weeks, the homepage on the new server was getting hit. By the beginning of December, the new server was being crawled regularly, with the effect of Google's lengthy DNS cache eventually eliminating requests to the old server. Around the beginning of December, only about 10 out of 400 pages were showing in the index. By mid-December this had risen to about 200 and since the update of last week, we now have all content indexed. Aside from the homepage, a healthy PR7 then PR6 then PR7, none of the pages in the index showed PageRank until last week, when PR and backlinks were updated. Traffic has therefore been pretty uninspiring until now, with typically 100-200 unique visitors per day - not great for a site with 25,000 words of unique content in a popular content area, good PR and a decent spread of incoming links. However, now all pages have PR between 4 and 7 throughout the site and we're hoping for a major improvement in traffic when Google goes for the update in the SERPs based on the recent PR and backlink update.
Given that it'll probably end up around two and a half to three months from launching new content to it being fully indexed and integrated correctly into the SERPs, were we better off under the old monthly updates, when total time from launch to full indexing and integration was four to eight weeks?
I launched a site about November 20th. I got a DMOZ link almost right away as well as a link from another site I have.
G showed up in a few days, but got only robots.txt & the homepage. G's been back every 2-3 days since, as the main page is updated daily, but keeps getting only the homepage. That page is in the index, but I find it only if I do a site: search.
For new sites definitely (I count your site as new because of the DNS change). Established sites are better off with the new scheme.
On my birthday 18 November at about 10-00pm GMT, I uploaded a new site to a brand new domain name. A panic rush job with little or none of my usual research and preparation.
On 20 November at about 11-00am, I decided to research the opposition for the four agreed search terms. I found that this brand spanking new site with as yet no incoming links whatsoever and definitely not submitted to any directories or search engines was in the top 10 on Google for 3 of the 4 terms.
The 4th term was #22.
This was only a 5-page site plus contact form and location map page but all pages were in Google only 37 hours after uploading and about 72hrs after domain registration. Home page PR3 all other pages PR2.
How, I don't know but I suspect that when I checked online after uploading the site, the Google Toolbar flagged the URL for spidering.
Another interesting thing is that at this stage in the RUSHED timescale, I had not yet uploaded a robots.txt
Updated results appeared on the index about 1 day later.
As far as I can tell, google should not have any problem finding your new IP address as long as your DNS records are set correctly.
Msut say though that a larger site, with 1000s of pages only had 5000 visited in 2 weeks and only 400 showing on google.
SN
I have yet another site (Site B) came online and into the index about the same time, and still shows PR=0. Im hoping this too will be updated shortly.
Site B has over 50 backlinks from a PR=6 site, in addition to several PR=5 backlinks, so it should out-do Site A.
I also agree with John_C that there are at least three stages:
1) add page to index
2) calculate PR
3) implement new PR to influence SERPs
My pages PR has only just started showing on the toolbar but it's still being beaten in the SERP's by pages with a PR=2.My rankings have not yet been improved by the new PR. This would further solidify the 3 stage theory.
Makes it just under 2 months to be fully crawled. Will let you know when I make it into the SERPS.
To double make sure it gets listed, visit the site with the Googlebar installed.
Domain Registration: 2003/11/16
Site Live: 2003/11/21
Link added to existing PR3 page: 2003/11/23
First Spider by Google: 2003/11/30
First Appearance in Google SERP: 2003/12/02
First PR show on toolbar: 2004/01/08
First PR score on toolbar: 3
Backlinks found in Google: 0
Actual Backlinks: 1 (from a PR3 page)
No of pages in site: 2
Hope this is useful to someone.
*drums fingers impatiently on table*
My SERPs stink right now though. The toolbar shows a PR3, which seems a little low considering I have a DMOZ link and a couple of others.
