What does 'indexing' mean?

by Splimwad

Posted: 13 years ago 11 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi Folks
My web company have asked me for almost £500 to index my site for a year!
What does this mean and can I do this myself with software?
I already use 'pingler' to ping all my url's and I don't want to give them another penny because I have been the one who has built all the backlinks and done all the blogging. As far as I believe, they just use some automated system.
Any help would be brilliant!!!
Regards
Chris

#indexing

Kul 13 years ago

Indexing simply means getting your website listed in search results of search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.

If you have already pinged and backlinked your website, it is very likely already indexed.

You can check whether your site is indexed or not by searching for "site:yourwebsite.com" in the search engines.

If you can see your website listings, there's no need to go for that service.

Even if your website isn't listed, £500 is way too much to get it indexed!
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TrafficMystic 13 years ago

there are tons of tools both free and paid that do this and are way way less than £500
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Bentley74 13 years ago

Uhhhhh...
Reminds me of the fact that there are a LOT of "web companies" out there exploiting the ignorance (and I mean that in the best possible way) of others! <SIGH>

Assuming they mean getting indexed in the search engines (essentially meaning your site can potentially show up in the search results in Google et al for relevant search terms), that is a total JOKE. You could create a WordPress blog and basically end up indexed. lol

Are they guaranteeing first page results? Or at least a LOT more than simply getting you in the search engines? A Yahoo directory listing perhaps (which I believe costs a fair bit of $$)?

B
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- Splimwad 13 years ago
  
  Thanks for the tips.
  I get 72 entries found in Google
  10 pages in Yahoo
  and
  1 page in Bing
  
  That doesn't sound like it that great considering they have been indexing it for a while?
  
  Does it take a while with Yahoo and Bing?
  What else could I do to push it along
  
  And I don't mind being called ignorant, it's all a learning curve for me on this great forum
  Regards
  
  Thanks
  
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Kul 13 years ago

Your website is already indexed.

If one page of your website has been indexed, the whole website will gradually get indexed. Don't worry about that. Just make sure that all the pages on your website are linked from somewhere on the pages that are indexed.

To push it up in the rankings, you need to optimize your website for the search engines. This would include onsite optimization (content optimization) and offsite optimization (backlink building).
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missmystery 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Splimwad

Hi Folks
My web company have asked me for almost £500 to index my site for a year!

You're being blatently ripped off.

Are you sure they mean indexing, not hosting?
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Geek Girl Fi
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- Splimwad 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by missmystery
  
  You're being blatently ripped off.
  
  Are you sure they mean indexing, not hosting?
  
  Hi,
  
  No, the hosting is £200 a year in addition :-/
  And get this... They charged me £200 for adding me to Google maps!!!
  At the time I had no idea it was free until I found out and I went ballistic with them!
  They have only given me the very basic control panel too, so I am totally limited when adding new stuff to the site.
  
  I am so worried about changing the hosting in case they destroy my site or do something to it. It would cost me too much to have it redesigned and I don't know how to change it as anything I ask is always chargeable!!
  
  chris
  
  Thanks
  
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- Bentley74 13 years ago
  
  "I don't mind being called ignorant"
  
  Glad you didn't take it the wrong way (tends to be negative association with the term, but I simply meant that you - and many others - simply don't know enough about online marketing etc to realize that you're being taking for a ride!).
  
  This sort of thing infuriates me to no end!
  
  REALLY glad you decided to come here to ask about it! Many people would simply pay the money.
  
  B
  
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angelahodgins2011 13 years ago

Indexing is a process where server crawls through your website, fetches every page that it can find and stores a list of keywords that are found on your site. These keywords are then used to find pages on your site when a user perform search operations.
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Kul 13 years ago

If they charge you for everything, it might be worthwhile and worth the cost to ask them to give you a zipped backup of your website.

Once you have that, you will be able to change your host without any problems.

In fact, a lot of web hosting companies offer to transfer all your files over from your old host so you don't have to worry about anything.
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missmystery 13 years ago

Also you can get free website indexing software which pings your links so google picks them up. I don't know how good they are though.
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