Getting indexed in Google using gmail / Google Docs...

[blur]

A while back my partner and I started a website which was a directory of contractors for our local area. I would build the site and he would work on content and selling.

I purposely bought a .com domain name that was 'keyword rich' and (from what I could tell) wasn't registered before. It was/is a unique domain.

Being a new site and developing live on the server, I didn't want Google to stop by an index it until it was fully built. After a few weeks of development I did a google search for the domain and to my surprise it was indexed. Bittersweet to say the least because the cache showed page errors and al sorts of crap I didn't want in the google database.

But I started thinking about how Google knew about the site. My registrar? No, this has never happened with other domains. In fact, it was the exact opposite because I had problems getting some indexed in Google. I didn't post any links. My partner didn't post links.

Then it hit me: We had been using gmail to talk about the progression of the site. Maybe Google picked the link from gmail and indexed it? Then I started thinking about Google docs. If I open/start a doc in google docs and write about the website (like an article), would it get indexed faster?

Has anyone had experience in this, or am I blowing smoke? I could swear the Google picked up the link from Gmail. If it is true, does link in Gmail have more weight because email is an actual discussion between 2 or more people?

I'd be interested in setting up an experiment, but it has to be with aged gmail accounts from different IPs.

P.S. I now know to develop locally...

[geolt7]

What you mentioned is new to me. Haven't heard anything of this sort. Would be interested to know the result of your experiment.

[pcpupil]

Ill try something if this is what you mean.I just put up a site a few days ago.
An adsense site.Its not indexed yet.I have a friend that uses gmail like me.
If you want,and is this what your asking.
Ill have her and i send about 6 emails back and forth with a link in it about my site and see if it gets indeed right away.Ill do tommorrow.

[Mohammad Afaq]

I don't think it's gonna work because there is not a lot of chance of Google Bot going into the people's emails or private documents and crawling them for links.

If it was like that then Google must have probably said something about it in their Google Webmaster Help section and by the way Google makes it clear by saying that they count backlinks from websites.

[kkchoon]

May be from the domain provider, some domain provider shows new domain somewhere on their site and causes Google to index your site

[blur]

Originally Posted by mohammad111

I don't think it's gonna work because there is not a lot of chance of Google Bot going into the people's emails or private documents and crawling them for links.

If it was like that then Google must have probably said something about it in their Google Webmaster Help section and by the way Google makes it clear by saying that they count backlinks from websites.

I can understand your point, but if google can scan email for spam then that means it can scan emails for other things too.

And I am not any conspiracy freak, but I think there are many things google does that aren't documented in the webmaster docs. It doesn't say it doesn't scan gmail either...

pcpupil - Please go ahead and give it a try and let us know!

[Voasi]

It might be the adsense bot crawling the URL. Adsense crawler scans emails to put up appropriate advertising and it might through URLs it finds into the main crawler for indexing.

[christineb]

I agree with Blur. I think there are many things that Google does which aren't documented. It wouldn't surprise me if Google scans data in Gmail and Google docs. To improve their search index, why not use all data available?

Look at what happens when you're logged into the Gmail interface. When you're logged in, you see Adwords relating to the subject/content of your email messages.

[rapidscc]

I think it's common knowledge that Big G scans emails because that's how they are able to match the adsense ads to display on the interface.

I just hope they don't start displaying email contents on results..ohh scary thought.

But I think that will be a very long shot. In fact even indexing sites based on the links in your emails can be considered invasion of privacy right?

IMHO I think Big G won't do that.

Omar

[blur]

I am not saying that google will will use the info in private email and docs to display in SERPs, but they might use it for discovery of new information, in trends, and other accumulative data. Look at the fact that they scan your email to display relevant ads, would that also be considered invasion of privacy? Also, gmail sits on google servers. Wouldn't it be easier for google to scan something on their own servers than someone else's? Maybe their is a different 'bot' for this.

When DJ AM died maybe they used the info from gmail conversation to help their search algorithms find out what news sources people were linking to (talking about) and maybe applying that data, along with other data, to what news sources came up in the top 5 on the SERP for the search term "DJ AM Dies" (sorry to be morbid, just a current event).

You never know the info google uses to help validate the results of their own serps.

If Google loves a link in the middle of a 150 word paragraph on a webpage, who's to say that it doesn't show love to a link in a 150 word email paragraph. Google is a big popularity contest and they love to hear what people have to say about something, especially in link text. Why would they not scan email for this? A webpage or blog is a 'conversation' between the author and the reader, wouldn't an email be the same but only with one intended reader?

I swear I'm not a conspiracy freak...

[pcpupil]

Well i just sent my first email with my link in it.
We will see what happens.Im no conspiricy anything either.But i will say if i wanted to be on top of everybody.And you where using my service.I would scan all and anything i wanted to to make sure there where no viruses,spams,bomb threats to a country,whatever i wanted to, to see what was going on.
How do they stay at number 1.
Ill bet i know.

[blur]

let us know how it goes...thanks!

[dburk]

Hi blur,

Google is a registrar and has access to data for every new domain registration. They have used this as a source for indexing for some time now. Unless you see pages being indexed with no links to it except from within Gmail then I wouldn't worry about Gmail links being crawled.

If you want to test whether or not Google indexes links in Gmail just create a page with absolutely no links to it from any other page and send a few emails between Gmail accounts. Then monitor your server logs for any bot activity. I think you will find that the bots never visit and the page will never be indexed, but don't trust me, test it for yourself.