SEO + Google

Hi all,

My site is now over 2 months old but still not listed on Google.

I have been reading here on Sitepoint that clean coded, accessible websites are what Google wants.
My site is XHTML, CSS coded and highly accessible yet is still not listed on Google.

What have I to do? What is most important?

Thanks.

Kevin.

Hi Obrienkev,

In a word - Patience!

Google takes its time listing new sites and can become very frustrating - I had a full head of hair before getting into SEO.

You are well on your way with tight code and complience so use the time to add good quality content, developing relevant backlinks and strong keyword optimization.

If you have not done so already, submit a sitemap to Google

You will get there!!

ATB

Take your time. I don't think I saw my first listing on Google until 4 or 5 months after my site was up. Patience is a virtue.

Try and get your site listed in DMOZ, and in the Yahoo! directories. (if they are not already)

Get some links pointing to your site from other sites with similar content, and/or some link farms.

I'd be a little careful using a link farm. This method is often frowned upon by the engines. There's an interesting article, entitled 'Popularity Doesn't Grow On Farms' on netmechanic.com

I agree with you. I would choose some of the largest for submission.

I would not blindly submit to all link farms in an effort to get links as most of them won't even give you any benifit.

NO! if your site is 2 months old and you have some backlinks and you are not indexed, you definitely have a problem

Maybe for some reason your site is banned.

mh,

i am no expert in this, but 5 month ago i put my site online ... and it took at least 3 month for google to pick it up. i do have 'some' backlinks ... and really you can count em with your fingers. but i am now under the top results for my keywords in google and any other major search engine.

- clean html (validate)
- clean other code (like css)
- good keyword usage
- building backlinks (not too many at once - here i am lacking)
- patience

will get you listed
i am now 5 month in this game and have very good results on my keywording ... well, thats all i know

Get yourself a Google webmasters account and read up on there, as was mentioned in this thread get a sitemap and submit it.

My latest site is less than two months old, is valid markup, css driven, keyword and content rich and Google have only just got around to giving it a healthy spidering. I'm in the results and they're sending me a smidge of traffic everyday but MSN has picked up quicker, has more pages listed and sends me twice as many clicks.

It's a funny game in that no two sites promotion is the same so there will always be different results. Don't get disheartened or too frustrated by it, check your site isn't sandboxed, hunt out a pagerank predictor, work on your content and building more backward links and the index will have no option but to include you.

Check your log files and see if Googlebot has been by.

Rehash has a point, if you're banned you'll need to act quick to dump what's offending it, fight the link war like mad and wait / hope they get you back in.

Suggestions:
** Get an Adsense/Adwords account.
** Exchange links
** Get mentions on reputable websites.
** Submit to Google manually (though your ranking will suffer a bit this way)

Google is not going to pick you up if you just clean-code your site, sit on your @** and do nothing. You have to make the effort too.

the adsense account is a good idea, possibly the only way there is to force google to send a spider to your site and check out your page content, how else are they going to show targetted ads on your site?