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Sunday, March 25, 2007

Google Spiders Everywhere

by Bonnie Calhoun

We've already discussed how to sign up for the search engines, including Google. See the post about Search Engines or click on the Label that I made for it.

Today I'm going to go through what it takes to make sure that your site is being crawled correctly by the spiders...LOL...That sounds cool, doesn't it?

One of the first things you need to be aware of is Google Blog Search Ping Service. You can ping your blog here to get Google to crawl it.

Then after you ping your blog, go and check for it to register on Google Blog Search. Now if it doesn't show up right away, don't worry!

Go sign yourself up with Google Alerts. When you sign up for this put the URL (address of your blog) in the top box, where it says search terms. The when your blog updates, you can tell how long it takes the spiders to crawl your blog, because Google will send you an email, every time you update!

Next thing...and I've addressed this in the Search Engine post is your site map. You can set this up with Google WebMaster Central. Now I can't say enough good stuff about these tools on this site. You can set up your site map, you can find out if your site is being indexed by Google, a Help Center, and multiple other tools!

I gave you instructions before on how to setup your site map, but make sure that when your done you get the little (1) on the column that says site map. After you've set up your site map, check the crawl rate.

Click on the tool for setting up a site map. This will be the page where you get the little (1) under the site map column. Click on the title of your blog and it takes you to the Diagnostics page that tells you all about your crawl rate, the errors, and tools.

Your crawl rate should be set to normal because it will tell you that at the slower rate: "A slower crawl will reduce Googlebot's traffic on your server, but we may not be able to crawl your site as often."

13 Comments:

  1. Cruel Jest said...
    Well, now. Information I need in a form I can understand. Thanks for doing this, Bonnie.

    See you in the intertubes. And keep up the good work.

    Regards
    M
    Sharon said...
    Thanks Bonnie for all of this great information. I'll try your suggestions and maybe my blog Mooky's Hood will get more traffic. Stop by and take a look for yourself.

    Thanks,
    www.mookyshood.blogspot.com
    Jessica Gottlieb said...
    Ugh, the site map

    I'm just not ready for it all.
    Misssy M said...
    Thanks for the down to earth jargon free explanation for bloggers like me, who just write but are not computer geniuses. All this talk about RSS feed etc just makes my head hurt!
    Anonymous said...
    Wow, this was excellent. I knew there were an infinite number of blogs out there but I didn't think I would find a blog specifically engineered towards creating blogs!
    Thanks
    Michelle Johnson said...
    Thanks so much for the information. My blog has had no visitors since I started it. Hopefully this will work.

    Thanks,
    Michelle
    Joe said...
    Excellent newbie tips on google spiders and getting our blogs pinged.

    If I said that phrase 100 years ago they would think I was definitely touched in the head.
    guinevere said...
    Practical concise info - thank you!
    Bonnie S. Calhoun said...
    Thank you all! I try to write so that even I can understand it *snort*

    And you're right Joe...I was talking to my sister about spiders crawling her pages, and my mother yelled,"Well get the can of RAID from under the sink!"
    kish said...
    thanks for doing this. much appreciated. the dirty work and research is usually underappreciated.
    Obviously Darren said...
    Really useful information, thanks so much for posting it!
    Bonnie S. Calhoun said...
    LOL...new blogs never show up. You need to develop a consistent posting history, visitors, and numerous incoming and outgoing links before the spiders will notice you.
    Anonymous said...
    Thanks Bonnie! you have been put into my favorites! I've learned more in the last 20 minutes then I knew in 1 month! Thanks and Keep up the good work!

    www.56rebels.wordpress.com

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