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All Optimized and Going Nowhere?
By Jennifer Horowitz (c) 2008

It happens sometimes. Here are some of the common reasons
you may not be indexed:

Index Time: It hasn't been indexed yet. The amount of time
before the engine indexes your site should be listed on the
search engine's submission page, but these aren't always
accurate or may be out of date. On the average, index times
range from one to eight weeks depending on the engine. Some
engines like AltaVista and Inktomi offer paid options if
you wish to be indexed more quickly.

TIP! Time frame and expectations: Allow up to 4 months, if
you are number 10 and want to be number 1, then it may just
be time that is needed - but if you aren't showing up at
all, then you need to look at keywords, content, title,
description and keyword tags.

Already Indexed:  The major engines won't tell you if
you're listed; it's up to you to find out. The method to
discover if a page or domain has been indexed varies from
one engine to another. Never assume you're not indexed
just because you searched through keywords and you never
came up in the first few pages of results. You could still
be indexed and end up at the bottom of the heap.

Roadmap from Home Page: Some engines have been known to
drop pages that cannot be traveled to from the home page.
HotBot has been rumored to do this. Think of your site
links as a series of roads from one page to another. If
there's no road from your home page to the page you want
indexed, a search engine may decide the page is unnecessary.

External Links: Some search engines like Google and HotBot
have been known to refuse to index Web sites that don't
link to any other sites. Or, they may index your home page
but refuse to index any other pages unless there are links
from another domain. Or, they may index you for a while
but then "prune" their database later because you didn't
achieve any external links after a certain period of time.

Frames: Content inside of HTML frames can cause problems
with submissions because the search engine may index the
main content of the page, but not the surrounding menu
frame. Visitors to your site find some information but miss
the associated menu. It's generally better to create
non-framed versions of your pages.

Spider Blocks: Search engine spiders cannot index sites
that require a registration or password, and they can't
fill out forms.  This also applies to indexing of content
from a searchable database. The solution is to create
static pages that the engines can find and index without
performing a special action on your site. Depending on your
database system, there are both utility programs and
companies that can assist you with this.

Free Sites: Because of all the "junk" submissions from free
web sites like Geocities, many engines choose not to index
sites from such domains or limit the number of pages they
accept.

Guilt Through Association: If your Web site shares the same
IP address as other Web sites on your host's Web server,
you may find your IP quietly banned because of something
someone else did.  Ask your hosting service if your domain
name has its own unique IP assigned to it. If not, ask them
to move it to its own IP to avoid being penalized because
of someone else.

Dynamic Pages: Dynamic pages with URLs containing special
symbols like a question mark (?) or an ampersand (&) are
ignored by many engines. Pages generated on the fly from a
database often contain these symbols. In this situation,
it's important to generate "static" versions of each page
you want indexed. Fancy scripts and code on a page can
hurt your rankings. When it comes to search engines,
simple is better.

Large Pages: If your site has a slow connection or the
pages are very complex and take a long time to load, it
might time out before the spider finishes indexing. To
avoid this, limit your page size to 50K or less. A good
rule of thumb is that:  page size + cumulative image sizes
on the page = 50K-70K. If it is greater than that amount,
visitors with dial-up connections will leave before the
page fully loads.

Unreliable Hosts: It pays to have a reliable hosting
service. If your web site doesn't respond when the search
engine spider visits, you won't be indexed. Even worse, if
you are indexed and they pay a visit when your site is
down, you could be removed from the database.

Spam: If you use questionable techniques that might be
considered an overt attempt at spamming (i.e., excessive
repetition of keywords, same color text as background) an
engine may ignore or reject your submissions.

Redirects: Redirects or meta refresh tags sometimes cause
the engines to have trouble indexing your site.  If the
engines think you are trying to "trick" them by using
"cloaking" or IP redirection technology, they may not index
the site at all.

Proper Directory Submissions: When submitting to a
directory site like Yahoo, Open Directory, LookSmart, and
others, a live person reviews your site. They decide if the
site is of sufficient "quality" before they list it.  These
directories can help you get listed with other engines, so
make sure you give your directory submissions the attention
they need.

Page Limits: Search engines will only spider so many pages
of your Web site. This could be a few dozen or three or
four hundred depending on the engine. Google is one engine
that tends to crawl deeper into your site. How deep they go
may depend on factors like your link popularity. Sites with
higher link popularity are deemed "worthier" of more
thorough indexing.

Random Errors: Sometimes the engines simply lose
submissions at random because of bugs and technical errors.
Mistakes happen - remember, they're managing a database
containing hundreds of millions of pages.
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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing and co-owner
of http://www.EcomBuffet.com . Since 1998, her expertise
in online marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
has helped clients increase revenue and achieve their
business goals. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on
Search Engine Optimization and has been published in many
SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer can be reached at
Jennifer@ecombuffet.com
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