Already listed in Search Engines!

Best way to check my ranking?

[Andy217]

Hi folks,

Just started my online personals website last weekend. Paid the $39 to Marketleap (Inktomi) and submitted my URL to the remaining free submission major search engines.

It's only been 7 days, and I'm already listed in Google, MSN, Hotbot, AOL Search (Google), Overture, Excite, About, and Yahoo Search (not sure who powers them).

Does anyone know of an available tool or service that I can use to check my position for certain keywords on various search engines (short of typing them in and doing the manual hunt on my own?).

Thanks for any insight!

[tigger]

the only safe way is by hand at least with Google

[Andy217]

Ouch...I was afraid of that. :)

[Opportune Moment]

Wow you got listed on Google so fast? The free section? I've been trying to get my site added for over 2 months.

Anyone have any suggestions on getting added to Google? I've submitted to them directly and through DMOZ.org. I'm getting frustrated it's taking so long.

[takagi]

Doesn't need to be that hard. Go to 'preferences' on www.google.com and set the number of results to 100. Search for the keyword(s) on www.google.com/ie and use the browser function to search on the page (CTRL-F for Internet Explorer) to find the title of your page, and you see the ranking. Try the search for 'house' in the following link:

[google.com...]

[tigger]

>Anyone have any suggestions on getting added to Google

it's not hard to get listed in Google getting good rankings is another thing, links is the best way in, I've found over the last few months it's taking around 3 days

[takagi]

Hi, Opportune Moment

It looks the site related to the email address in your profile has all 5 pages in Google's index.

[edited by: takagi at 5:05 pm (utc) on Aug. 24, 2003]

[Andy217]

Tigger - You're exactly right! Once I know where I start ranking at for certain keywords I can track which way I'm going. :)

Beats me how I got into Google so fast. I read the procedures outlined in the book "Google Hacks" and submitted to Google through the addurl.html page. But even the author suggests that it takes almost four weeks before the Googlebot visits. Go figure? Inktomi crawled my site last night and I appeared in all the SE's I listed above today (including Google). I wonder if that had something to do with it?

Takagi - thanks for the help! That's exactly what I was looking for! :)

[Opportune Moment]

takagi, how can I check to see how many pages I have in the google index? Reason I ask is that I used some online tool that said I have 0 pages in Google, so I am confused.

Thanks

[takagi]

If your site is 'domain.com' search on Google for

site:domain.com -qwerty

This will show all pages of your site that DON'T contain the word 'qwerty'. In your case, all 5 pages.

[Opportune Moment]

Thanks for the help Takagi

[2_much]

Don't check your rankings. Check your traffic.

[Andy217]

Hi 2_Much...can you elaborate?

Higher rankings for keywords will lead to more traffic, I thought?

[carolynf]

Your hosting service should provide you with traffic statistics. I get to mine by adding "/stats" to my URL. It shows me year-to-date, monthly, weekly traffic broken down by a variety of things including ISP.

[bateman_ap]

Andy217, you can be on top for whatever keywords you think are important but at the end of the day if no-one is searching for them or clicking through to your site all your no 1 spots are in vain. That is why it is so important to be able to access your log files to process with a log analizer or failing that a stats area on your site from your host but raw logs are always the best bet as you can do whatever you want with them.

Also since the death of the google dance the four weeks for google listing doesn't apply anymore, as has been said it can be done in a matter of days now. Just shows how quickly books date with this medium!

Footnote: Is it a bit strange that a website dealing with search engine promotion doesn't know how to check their presence within google?

[Andy217]

Sounds like I need to learn more about the benefits of monitoring traffic using my log files. I thought log files were only valuable because they showed where the traffic is already coming from.

I'm thinking that since my website is very new, if I can obtain a high ranking for a certain keyword that people are searching for, that should create a flow of traffic that I didn't have before.

I was using Overture's "Search Term Suggestion Tool", because I can query any keyword I can think of and it will show me how many people searched for that keyword last month. Figured I couldn't go wrong, and even got a few new ideas for keywords by using it.

SEO is a very complex game, and I appreciate the posts! This is good stuff, people! :)

[Andy217]

"Footnote: Is it a bit strange that a website dealing with search engine promotion doesn't know how to check their presence within google?"

Bateman_ap...who are you referring to? Just curious.
Now that the Google Dance is dead, what's next?

[takagi]

Hi Andy217, don't worry. That footnote was not meant for you but for another member. You didn't mention any problems to check your presence within google, didn't you?

[2_much]

What are rankings worth without traffic? A successful SEO campaign can have different metrics, but rankings shouldn't be one of them in my opinion. Track traffic, orders, conversions, ROI, etc...

[Andy217]

Takagi - Just making sure I didn't miss something. That comment confused me. I get it now. :)

2_much - You've brought up a good point. Thanks for posting. Definitely an angle I hadn't thought of, being new to the SEO game and all. ;)

[Opportune Moment]

Are there any really good books for sale that deal with SEO? Or do you think anything I'll find at a bookstore is outdated by now?

[bateman_ap]

Opportune_Moment, think that if you spend a good few days reading through webmasterworld, the libary is a good place to start [webmasterworld.com...] but make sure you read the old posts too. There is some excellent information about.

It may take a long time but if you want to learn all there is about SEO then it will teach you much more than any book ever can.

[Opportune Moment]

Thanks, yeah I agree these posts are invaluable. Maybe I'll start printing them out so I am organized :)

Hey does anyone know how to check which sites have links to you?

[Andy217]

Well, I'm listed in the search engines. But I can't find myself anywhere when I search on my keywords. Any ideas on which way to go now?

[takagi]

Hey does anyone know how to check which sites have links to you?

Easiest is to go to www.alltheweb.com and enter the URL (like 'www.domain.com' or 'domain.com') and press enter. After that click on the links that are shown on the SERP.