So, as an experiment, I wanted to try to get an up-to-date example of the time taken for the "majors"* to pick up with the "free" listings. It obviously depends on the spidering cycle and speed of adding valuable incoming links, so there's bound to be faster and slower results.
Here are the results after 10 weeks on the test site:
Alltheweb -
still waiting for a first showing of the spider after 10 weeks.
Altavista -
9 weeks spidered and picked up the home page only and in the db. At least that's a start.
Google -
4 weeks and spidered the whole website and in the db.
7 weeks to see an updated Google directory (see ODP below).
Mirago -
still waiting for sight of "Henry."
ODP -
3 days! Brilliant.
Wisenut -
nothing yet - don't expect much.
* This is not an exhaustive list, but includes the majors (IMO) where I would have expected some action.
I'm sure we already know that it's important to be patient with the free listings, however, this goes to show how patient one must be.
Additionally, this research indicates to me which services are likely to provide and up-to-date search capability. Draw your own conclusions - websurfers will.
The AV results are not buried, but, are not top-of-the-heap, either. It's not unreasonable, but, AV needs to see the rest of the site and some of the new links before it'll make a difference. I'm glad to see AV picking things up, at last.