Tiny Action, Mighty Payoff: Checking The Google Index

TweetIf I had a nickel for every time someone said to me —

“I don’t think my website is even IN Google.”

— I would have like… $2.65.  :)

I think what people mean when they say this is that they don’t believe Google knows they exist — they aren’t finding their website when they do searches for keyword phrases that they think they should be ranking for.  They may not even be finding their website when they Google the exact name of their business.

The very first (or at least one of the very first) things I do when someone asks me to look at a website is I will do a “site operator” on Google to check what web pages Google has in its index.

Google (and the other search engines) work this way

1. A program (commonly called a “spider”) will visit your website,
2. it will “crawl” your website (essentially reading the content of the pages on your site),
3. it will then return the contents of the pages that it “crawled” to be categorized in the index.
4. When a searcher types something in that Google thinks you are appropriate for, it displays your site in the results

IMPORTANT: In order for a web page to be displayed as a Google result, the page must first be indexed.

The Process for Checking the Google Index

1. Visit Google
2. Type site:yourdomain.com — no spaces and no www.  or http:// prefixes.
3. Don’t be satisfied to find out that Google does indeed know that you exist — comb through the results for a bit — you will likely learn something about your website and the mysterious ways of Google.

What You Might Find When You are Checking the Google Index

• Everything looks kosher — If it looks like Google has all of your pages in the index and nothing looks funky — go buy yourself an ice cream cone — you’re a lucky dog!
• Nothing, zero, zilch, nada — You have found that Google does not know that you exist or that you have been banned.  This is a problem.  Especially if your site is much older than 2 months or so.  Your site may have never been indexed by Google or it may be banned.  Contact an Internet marketing professional that can have a look under the hood for you.

Here is an example of what Google displays when they literally don’t know you exist —- or they have banned you from their index —

• Google does not have some of your pages indexed. This scenario and the next one are the most likely.  You will find that there are pages on your site that are not in the index –  Start investigating why or contact a professional that can help you.
• Google has pages indexed that you don’t want indexed. This is where you see all kinds of screwy things — that run the gamut from old deleted pages that don’t exist anymore to pages that are generated dynamically by a shopping cart.  Look for results that look out of place.
• SPAM – From time to time, doing a site: will reveal that your website has been hacked by bad people that live in their parents basements and do nothing but eat chinese take-out while trying to figure out how to make our lives hell.  They will hack your web server and create havoc by creating new pages that advertise porn, ring tones, mp3′s and other SPAMMY things.  First, go make yourself a strong drink and then call a web professional.

What are your questions about checking the Google index?  What advice do you have for the rest of us about the Google index?

Tagged as: google, google index