More SEO Part I: Indexing

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
Site: http://www.capecodbranding.com
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While progressing through the “Search Engine Optimization For Dummies” book I have come across some new SEO items that we had implemented in our website that I thought would be valuable to pass along. I will address a new SEO related topic each day for the next three days, starting with indexing. This is a follow up to my original SEO series published last month, refer to my article “SEO Part I: Sites Vs. Systems” to learn the basic distinction between search engine websites versus search engine systems.

Indexing Explained
In simplest terms indexing basically refers to having your website listed for later retrieval by a person conducting a search by means of a search engine or directory. There are two important places you need to concern yourself with, the first being the search engines, and the second being The Open Directory Project, both of which are addressed here.

Search Engines
Is your site currently indexed, or located, within the major search engines and directories? These include:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. MSN Live
4. Open Directory Project

Here is a quick and easy way to check Google:

1. Go to Google
2. Enter the following: “site:domain.com”, for example our site would be site:http://capecodbranding.com as shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1. Google Home Page

3. Click “Google Search”
4. View the Google results. An example of the Cape Cod Branding indexed pages are provided below as Figure 2.

Figure 2. Google Results Page

Note the indexed pages on the left and the total number of results on the right, which I have highlighted.

The same approach may be used to determine how much you have indexed within the other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN Live.

Open Directory Project
The Open Directory Project is a large collection of websites which is volunteer run, but owned by AOL. Your website being present in this listing is supposedly just as important as the search engines. Browsing the rules for submission it appears to be managed fairly strictly. We had submitted back in January, without anything happening since. Back then the backlog was approximately two months for approval and inclusion although we did not receive confirmation. Since then we submitted again about three weeks ago (late May), with the backlog estimated at two weeks, still without result. I will provide an update once I learn more. In the meantime, here is a quick way to check if your site is listed on Open Directory Project:

1. Go to the Open Director Project website.
2. Enter your domain name, without the “www” and click “Search” as shown below in Figure 3:

Figure 3. Open Directory Project Home Page

3. Review the results screen as shown in Figure 4:

Figure 4. Open Directory Results Page

Note again that our site has not been listed yet, hopefully you will have better luck!

To Be Continued…
In More SEO Part II will address the importance of keywords and how to select the optimum keywords.

Checking your sites indexing is a quick way to determine the extent of your web presence on search engines and directories!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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