Indexed? What is it and what does it mean?

Indexed basically means its been picked up by search engines, if a site or article hasnt been indexed then no one will find it through the search engines.

"Indexation" = the process in which a search engine (typically Google but of course there are many others, too) "sees" your new content and includes it in its index, i.e. adds it to the list of stuff that's eligible to come up in the search engine results pages when people put search-terms in the little box.

Not really.

Well, much better than doing it the other way round, anyway!

But better still if you check that Google's indexed it before you submit it anywhere else. For complicated reasons, and not the simple ones most people imagine (many of which are typically mistaken).

It varies.

In this forum, for example, it's about 10 minutes, because this site gets indexed all the time, day and night. Because it gets updated so regularly - and that's the point. The more regularly your sites are updated, the more frequently they're indexed. It's kind of a "learning process" for search engines - all automated, of course.

Yes, correct.

In one of three ways:-

(i) Google "just finds it" because it already knows of your site's existence, takes a quick look every now and again, and finds something new and adds it to its index (in other words, "it happens on its own");

(ii) You actively tell Google that it's there and invite it to come and look (people I trust tell me that this works really badly, and that Google prefers to find stuff on its own, and I do actually believe them);

(iii) Google sees backlinks on other sites to your new content and thinks to itself "Ooh, better take a quick look, then" and goes to your site and indexes it. This can definitely work, but is probably only really necessary if Google's being slow to index it unprompted. And it's obviously a nuisance to have to start making backlinks to something just to get it indexed. But probably better than informing Google directly, even so.

The bottom line is: "update regularly"!

This is the important question.

I'll tell you how I check: I take a ten-word segment from my new content, a bit that crosses a period (i.e. the end of one sentence and the start of the next), and I put it into Google between "inverted commas". If my new content comes up in the results, then it's been indexed. Simple, but reliable.

(Mine are always indexed within 48 hours, often much less. But I do update regularly.)

Not at all, Andrew. You're just one of those really useful people who sometimes asks stuff that 500 other people also wanted to know but hadn't asked for themselves. So you're doing loads of people a favour, starting a thread like this.

What alexa says about the quotes. You could also run this query> site:http://www.yourarticle.url
If you get results with your article page(s) that means it is indexed by the search engine.

Awesome stuff Alexa, thanks!

I do have one question, which is probably because of my warped way of thinking......

in your number iii: "(iii) Google sees backlinks on other sites to your new content and thinks to itself "Ooh, better take a quick look, then" and goes to your site and indexes it. This can definitely work, but is probably only really necessary if Google's being slow to index it unprompted."


If Google sees a backlink from another site back to your post and may index it faster this way, doesn't that defeat the purpose of waiting for it to be indexed before posting it somewhere else? How does this someplace else know about the post if you haven't posted it anywhere else because you're waiting for it to be indexed?

Gee, that's a confusing statement, but I think you'll get my point. Am I thinking too deep with this stuff? lol

Telling the truth its just some scam word, as you website gets indexed automatically, no matter if you index it yourself or not!
Trying to index it is just a waste of time!

Really interesting thread here.

Thanks Alexa for this great infos.

If I understand correctly, the best way to have our blog post indexed very quickly is to create a signature link on this great forum.

This is a common and good way to get your site indexed - by posting a sig link in active forums.

"indexed" means that your content is available in search engines and visible in Google in particular. There is an easy way to find out whether your website is indexed or not: use the term:

site:yoururlhere.com

If Goog showes your site, it is indexed.