How do I invite Google Bot?

Yes. That is certainly clear. No debate about that.

This is true. But there's a huge difference between our work and their, largely speculative, work. A lot of the search engines, especially Google, won't share how their results are constructed. Because of this, they experiment and observe through a system that is changing all the time. Imagine trying to figure out how our world works if the physics that govern it kept changing, but you wouldn't be able to observe these changes on a grander scale until sometimes months later, if ever!

I agree. Most of the info on the site is pretty useful. But I have trouble putting my trust about something entirely speculative coming from a single man. A man who, incidentally, also highly suggests some very questionable tactics to boost rankings in Yahoo! and Google.

 

See, that is a questionable response. Consider the following:

• Your site's content has changed, thus losing you the spot.
• You have nothing on your site.
• The guy clearly stated that using AddURL wouldn't have an effect either way once your site has already been indexed. If you're noticing a drop in rank, it had already been indexed, thus using AddURL wouldn't have made a difference.

If the last is true, then the following comes into mind: why were you adding your URL if you were already indexed?

Also, I can't find your site on any of the results for "SphinxMedia."

 

Yeah, maybe you're right.
We'll see if anything new about this pops up in the future.

I already used "ADD URL" years ago so why even bother ;-)

Didier

 

LOL! I hear that! I used it back in the day, and now I've got a PR of 5. Couldn't have hurt too much, eh?

 

Hmmm, that's interesting. I'm getting more results this time. (Even after having clicked "repeat the search with the omitted results included." before.) Now it appears to be 9th on the page. Interesting.

 

I thought I'd add some personal experience here in case it helps. I submitted my site to Google when I first started and I resubmit my site to Google every time I make any major changes. I know it isn't necessary. My last submission was about 6 weeks ago. My site is currently #1 for my target search phrase and has bounced between #1 and #2 for years.

 

I need to do a "don't omit search....", then it's third, but without any descriptions or anything. I seem to recall that Google does customize the search results a little bit, depending on your location (country) and previousl searches. I don't know if anybody else notices either, but the search also favours sites related to places where I surfed lately that uses Google Ads.

 

sphinxmedia appears as # 6 @ google right now for me. Seems to be a popular name though. I get sphinxmedia.de as # 1. Maybe because I recently googled some German sites.

 

Quite frankly, I wouldn't bother too much about google rankings before there's some real content on the site.

Once you get something done, (say, a game) and mention about it on a couple of websites, google tends to rank you higher.

As to PageRank.. I moved my pages from one server to another. Pages on my old server (with only "I've moved!" notice left) seem to have a PR of 4 or so. The new server pages have a PR of 0. Still, google finds them just fine.

jari komppa - first hit (obviously)
SolVBE - second hit.
Orbital Sniper - 8th hit, but there's tons of ZDNet downloads etc. before it, so that's not surprising.
sol sdl tutorial - 4th hit
cameleon98 - 2nd hit

 

So here's my two cents worth of experience with Google ranking. I used to frequently keep up a photoblog and after a year or so I had the number 1 ranking for my last name (which I thought was impressive). This lasted for about 3 years but since I work so much now, I really don't blog about 'life' just the gamedev (which gets about 1 hit a day maybe, hehe)

Anyway, the biggies are ones previously mentioned such as having direct, relevant links back and forth between your site and others. Definitely add the url through their submit as well as yahoo and other sites. Definitely add your site to DMOZ.

However, the best 'trick' I found to help though was a simple, site map. If you have a large text listing of valid links with good descriptions then you are basically giving the google spiders a feast to eat. Look into making and upkeeping that portion of your site, since once Google hooks into you, they usually index your site every 3 days or so, less if you are more popular.

Also, all the old spamming/keyword tricks of the past -- Google will punish you for it if they find them. Frequent updates, good traffic, and a well organized site will get your relevancy up in a matter of months.

Hope that helps!

 

In case people haven't seen this yet... but here's the mathmatical solution to optimizing your site for google.

http://www.e-marketing-news.co.uk/Mar05/garcia.html

 

Did you read the article? The only thing the article offers is to dispell the myth that search engines are concerned with word density. In no manner does it describe any of Google's systems of ranking, including ontology, PageRank, Hilltop, LocalRank, and the multitudes of other weights that go on behind the scenes and considered "trade secrets," so we may never know how it ranks the pages. We can give educated guesses, but that's about the extent of it. No. There is no "mathematical solution to optimizing your site for google." And don't try to convince anyone there is.

 

I agree with Soni.

Better spend your time on something else.

What if you found the exact algorithm?
In a few months Google can update their algorithm and your back at the bottom of the list.
It's a waste of time, they are just too smart.

Didier

 

Uhhh... do you even realize that this was a joke. Search engine optimization is not a science. Sure there are things you can do to improve your site. But the major search engines change on a regular basis. My point in posting this link (which I found from wikipedia), was simply in regards to attracking google bots, pointing out that for every article similar to the one that I posted, you'll find thousands of other articles saying exactly the opposite. The "mathematical solution" was a tongue in cheek coment.

 

No. Did you?

 

I would say instead of making your site better for google, why not make it better for people? Then it will naturally become better for google.

But then don't listen to me, my site isn't at the top of Google for any of the terms I throw at it...

Pete