How do I know if my changes have been indexed?

DEone · #1 (**permalink**) 09-09-2005, 12:40 PM

Ok, so I've set about optimizing my webpage for my designated keyword terms and submitted the site to the search engines...

How do I know when those changes have been 'noticed' by search engines?

How do I know when it's time to go back to the drawing board and make more changes?

If weeks pass and my page ranking hasn't improved, should I be more patient and wait longer to see if my changes will eventually improve my ranking or should I assume my previous changes didn't accomplish anything and start over?

Chris

voasi · #2 (**permalink**) 09-09-2005, 01:16 PM

You can do a site: search and locate your pages. If you don't see the changes made (if they're Title and Description changes) then you know the pages haven't been cached.

Another easier way to check is to click on the "Cached Snapshot of Page" button in the Google toolbar. If the pages have been cached after the date you implemented the changes, then Google caught them.

If it's for another search engine like Y! and MSN, you will have to do the site: command for those.

DEone · #3 (**permalink**) 09-09-2005, 01:50 PM

Thanks for the advice!

Now, a tougher question:

If the changes I made to my pages generated no improvement in my rankings but according to software reports like IBP and website analysis tools like http://www.sitereportcard.com/ my site is very well optimized for my keyword terms and the html,etc is better than sites that are highly ranked, what do I do next?

The initial advice I got from this forum was to clean up the html of my pages. I've done so but that hasn't accomplished anything for me. And when checking the sites that I am competing with I see that they are all pretty poorly designed and that the html on my site is cleaner...

I'm kinda stumped as to what I should do next...

I know that the IBP software isn't a perfect solution but it it is helpful in comparing websites for particular keyword terms. If that report says I've done just about everything right and I can see that my html is better off than the sites that are ranked above me, what else can I do to move up in the rankings?

voasi · #4 (**permalink**) 09-09-2005, 05:21 PM

I don't really believe in those types of programs are applications that "rate" your site. That is based on someone's initial choices, which is the application developer. I've put a site that was ranking top 1 across all search engines that I was given a 67% once. I then realized that these programs aren't worth my time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccrooke

The initial advice I got from this forum was to clean up the html of my pages. I've done so but that hasn't accomplished anything for me. And when checking the sites that I am competing with I see that they are all pretty poorly designed and that the html on my site is cleaner...

I love that. People give this advice when they don't know what to tell you. "Clean the code...it will help the search engines crawl your site and rank it better". That just isn't true. The search engines spiders are very smart seeding through code. I have some extremely bad coded sites and they rank great.

As for your problem, you rank great in Google for Pup Forum, which seems to be the target keywords you're trying to get ranking for (I'm assuming that the PupForum.com is the site we're talking about). If "Pup Forum" isn't the keywords you're tying to rank for, you need to get more inbound links with the correct keywords. Checking your backlinks, you have most of your backlinks with Pup Forum, PupForum or PupForum.com as your anchor text.

If you have more questions...I'm happy to answer! :)

**mike** · #5 (**permalink**) 09-10-2005, 01:28 AM

Have to agree with Voasi here. Clean code certainly is nice and all, but I've very seldom (if ever) heard of anybody making a significant leap in the SERPs strictly due to a code cleaning.

It's the content within the code that matters (and who is linking to it).

DEone · #6 (**permalink**) 09-10-2005, 07:26 AM

Thanks to both of you for confirming about the cleaning of code...

i was really frustrated with the feedback I received in the other forum topic... they were trying to help, i'm sure, and i appreciated it... but i really felt that the advice wasn't going to be the deciding factor in getting my rankings back up.

voasi, the page im trying to optimize is:
http://www.pupforum.com/adoptadog/index.cfm im trying to optimize it for the keyword term adopt a dog

you can read my initial topic seeking advice here:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=51565

any advice you or anyone can give would be great. at this point ill take anything: specific advice on crafting the content of the page or general advice on further steps i can take to make gains in the search engine rankings

chris

**brian.mark** · #7 (**permalink**) 09-11-2005, 01:00 AM

In the IBP report you posted on your site, take a look at the section "Link Popularity Analysis". It shows your page having 2 links, while most of the pages have well over 1,000. That's the biggest difference I see between your site and the ones in the top 10 in that report.

I'd recommend you find some directories and start submitting that page to them. Start here if you need some help finding a list of directories to submit to. Once you have some directory links, start finding some other sites to ask for links from. You've got lots of options there.

Brian.

DEone · #8 (**permalink**) 09-11-2005, 08:55 AM

Thanks Brian

The report is now a week or two old but I imagine the linking issue hasn't changed...

I know there are many sites out there that link back to my site but i think my linking strategy has been off... most of the sites are just using images or our Adopt a Dog form (our links can be found here)...

I guess I'll spend a few days reading through the forum about linking strategies and check out the directories you mention... no doubt I'll have questions but I'll save them for another topic/post

I guess my question at this point is:

Do you feel that the content and word-smything of the page is good to go? It seems to me that I've done just about every 'trick' I've learned about otimizing the content.

If everyone is of the opinion that my page is filled with good content and keywords, I'll focus strictly on links for a few weeks and see what that gets me...

thanks again

chris

**brian.mark** · #9 (**permalink**) 09-11-2005, 02:02 PM

Looks pretty good. You've got your h1 looking good, use the phrase in your title, have the prase in the page content, so it looks like you've covered most of the bases. The only thing I'd add is alt text of "adopt a dog" to your graphic of the same text.

Links are an ongoing project, not just do it a week and forget it. Our method (probably different than most places) is to get links on one morning a week for a couple hours, then work on other stuff the rest of the week. Links are important, but so is taking care of our customers and developing new original content.

Brian.

DEone · #10 (**permalink**) 09-11-2005, 02:42 PM

cool...

ya know, i had the adopt a dog phrase sprinkled throughout the page in the img tag alt attributes and the anchor tag title attributes... but the IBP report told me to lose it...

think ill put it back in and stop taking the IBP report as the final say in how to craft my pages

rock on!

chris

DEone · #11 (**permalink**) 09-13-2005, 02:34 PM

now ranked #2 on msn for adopt a dog!

rock on!

of course, I'm at about listing #60 on yahoo and nowhere to be found on google...

i'll keep working on it

**brian.mark** · #12 (**permalink**) 09-13-2005, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccrooke

now ranked #2 on msn for adopt a dog!

rock on!

of course, I'm at about listing #60 on yahoo and nowhere to be found on google...

i'll keep working on it

Google will probably want more time and more links.

Yahoo seems slow at times in updating their index, but it should come around.

Congrats on the #2 ranking. Your site seemed to be crafted well - not too much, not too little. Someone can always suggest a minor tweak, and they sometimes make for a big positive change.

Happy rankings!

Brian.