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color:#666666; width:30em"> <p style="font-size:14px;">Your source for product news and developments</p> </div> <div class="post three"> <h3><a name="113984843467944419">Improving your site's indexing and ranking</a></h3> <p class="byline-timestamp">2/13/2006 09:18:00 AM</p> <p class="byline-author">Posted by Vanessa Fox</p><br /> <div style="clear:both;"></div>You've submitted a Sitemap for your site. As we explain in our <a href="http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html">docs</a>, a Sitemap can help us learn more quickly and comprehensively about the pages of your site than our other methods of crawling, but it doesn't guarantee indexing and has no impact on ranking.<br /><br />What other things can you do to increase your site's indexing and ranking?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Make sure your site is full of unique, high-quality content.</span><br />Google's automated crawling, indexing, and ranking processes are focused on providing quality search results. Is your site a high-quality result for the queries you want to rank highly for? Look at your home page. Does it provide information or does it consist primarily of links? If it is mostly links, where do those links go? Do they lead visitors to good information on your site or simply to more links? Look at your site as a searcher would. If you did a search, would you be happy with your site as a result?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Does your site follow the webmaster guidelines?</span><br />Take a close look at your site and our <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html">webmaster guidelines</a>. Remember that your site should be meant for visitors, not search engines. It's a good idea to read these guidelines and evaluate your site to make sure it meets them. If it doesn't, your site probably won't be indexed, even if you submit a Sitemap. Here are a few things to check.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Does your site use hidden text?</span><br />Hidden text is generally not visible to visitors and is meant to give web-crawling robots, such as <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/bot.html">Googlebot</a>, different content. For instance, a site might add text in a very small font that is the same color as the page's background. Webmasters sometimes do this because they want to provide more information to the web-crawling robots, and this hidden text is often a list of keywords that the webmaster would like the site to be ranked highly for. Don't use hidden text on your site. Since Google's automated processes are focused in giving searchers high quality results, our guidelines are clear that sites should show Googlebot the same thing they show visitors so our processes can accurately evaluate them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Does your site use keyword stuffing?</span><br />Webmasters sometimes use keyword stuffing much the same way as hidden text. They want to give Googlebot a list of terms that they want their site to rank highly for. But Google's automated processes analyze the contents of a site based on what visitors see, not on a laundry list of keywords. If you want your site to rank highly for particular keywords, make sure your site includes unique, high-quality content related to those keywords.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Does your site buy links from other sites or participate in link exchange programs that don't add value for visitors?</span><br />You want other sites to link to you. So, guidelines about links may seem confusing. You want <span style="font-style: italic;">genuine </span>links: another site owner thinks your content is useful and relevant and links to your site. You don't want links that are intended only for Googlebot. For instance, you don't want to pay for a program that spams your link all over the Internet. You don't want to participate in link schemes that require you to link to a bunch of sites you know nothing about in exchange for links on those sites. Do you have hidden links on your site? These are links that visitors can't see and are almost always intended only for search engine web-crawling robots. Think about links in terms of visitors: are the links meant to help them find more good content or are they only meant to attract Googlebot?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Do you use search engine optimization?</span><br />If you use a search engine optimization company (SEO), you should also read through our <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html">SEO information</a> to make sure that you aren't using one who is unfairly trying to manipulate search engine results.<br /><br />If your site isn't indexed at all (you can check this by using the <a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/10/searching-what-google-knows-about-your.html">site: operator</a> or by logging into your <a href="http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps">Sitemaps account</a>, accessing the Index stats tab and then clicking the site: link) and you violate these guidelines, you can <a href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py">request reinclusion</a> once you modify your site.<br /><br />If your site isn't in the index, but doesn't violate these guidelines, there is no need to request reinclusion. Focus on ensuring that your site provides unique, high-quality content for users and submit a Sitemap. Creating a content-rich site is the best way to ensure your site is a high-quality result for search queries you care about and will cause others to link to you naturally.<div style="clear:both; padding-bottom:0.25em"></div> <p style="margin-top:1em;"> <span class="item-action"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=14705046&postID=113984843467944419" title="Email Post"><img class="icon-action" alt="" src="https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_email.gif" height="13" width="18"/></a></span><span class="item-control blog-admin pid-933388821"><a style="border:none;" href="https://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=14705046&postID=113984843467944419&from=pencil" title="Edit Post"><img class="icon-action" alt="" src="https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif" height="18" width="18"></a></span> </p> </div> <br /><br /> <p><strong>Previous Posts:</strong></p> <ul> <li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/analyzing-robotstxt-file.html">Analyzing a robots.txt file</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/from-field.html">From the field</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-stats-and-analysis-of-robotstxt.html">More stats and analysis of robots.txt files</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/chat-with-sitemaps-team.html">A chat with the Sitemaps team</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/giving-others-access-to-sitemaps.html">Giving others access to Sitemaps account information</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/01/more-about-changing-domain-names.html">More about changing domain names</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/01/answers-to-friday-questions.html">Answers to Friday questions</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/01/more-language-support.html">More language support</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/01/happy-new-year.html">Happy New Year!</a></li><li class="previousposts"><a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/12/www-vs-non-www-versions-of-site.html">www vs non-www versions of a site</a></li> </ul> <h6>Copyright 漏 2005 Google Inc. All rights reserved.<br> <a href="http://www.google.com/privacy.html">Privacy Policy</a> - <a href="http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html">Terms of Service</a> </h6></td> <td width="3" valign="top" style="border-left: 1px dashed #CCCCCC"> </td> <td valign="top"> <table cellpadding="15" cellspacing="0" border="0" bgcolor="#FEFADE"> <tr><td> <div class="sidebar two"> <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/"><img src="http://www.google.com/images/sitemapsblog.gif" alt="Go to Google Sitemaps" width=176 height=77 hspace="3" vspace="7" border=0/></a> <h3>Useful links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html">About Google Sitemaps</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html">Sitemap Generator</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html">Sitemap protocol</a></li> <li><a href="http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html">Third-party programs</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/logos.html">Sitemaps logos</a></li> </ul> <br/> <br/> </div> <div class="sidebar four"> <h3>Have a question or comment about Google Sitemaps?</h3> Visit our <a href="http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google-sitemaps">Google Sitemaps Group</a>. <br/><br/> </div> <div class="sidebar five"> <form action="http://www.google.com/search" method="get"> <h3>Search <i>Inside Google Sitemaps: Improving your site's indexing and ranking</i></h3> <input name="sitesearch" value="sitemaps.blogspot.com" type="hidden"> <input name="q" size="15" type="text"> <input value="Go" name="submit" type="submit"> </form> <select name="archivemenu" onchange="document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;"> <option selected>- Archives -</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/08/">August 2005</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/09/">September 2005</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/10/">October 2005</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/11/">November 2005</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2005/12/">December 2005</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/01/">January 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/02/">February 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/03/">March 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/04/">April 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/05/">May 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/06/">June 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/07/">July 2006</option> <option value="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/08/">August 2006</option> </select> <br/> <br/> <a href="http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default"><img src="http://code.google.com/images/xml.png" border="0"> Site feed</a> <br/><br/> <i>Inside Google Sitemaps: Improving your site's indexing and ranking</i> is powered by Blogger. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">Start your own weblog</a>.<br /> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/"><img style="margin: 0.8em 0pt 1.2em;" src="/media/blogger-simple-kahki.gif" alt="Blogger" border="0" height="30" width="88"></a> </div> </td></tr></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </body> </html>