SEO indexing is the idea of getting a new site indexed, or included within Google as quickly as possible. However, there are companies who prey on people not in the know, and sell seo indexing as a much bigger service. In reality getting your site indexed is something you can do yourself, if you have a spare 15 minutes. Worse still, some companies are changing hundreds of pounds for seo indexing – it makes my eyes water.
SEO indexing – The (very simple) Process
To get your new site indexed you’ll need to do a couple of things:
- Create a sitemap (or big list of your webpages) at XML Sitemaps, name it sitemap.xml and upload to your web server
- View the list of ping URLs – or list of website addresses you can visit directly to notify search engines about your website – see SEO Ping URLs E.g. for Google, visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http:%3A//www.YOURWEBSITE.co.uk/sitemap.xml
- If you get time, create a Google Webmaster Account and add your site there too – not essential to get your indexed, but very useful in the long run
However, you can ignore the above and get your site indexed even easier. In short, get a backlink from a site already included within Google. So if you have a friend who has a website, ask them to link back to you. In all honestly, if you site is simple and is doesn’t have a huge complicated nested structure, you probably won’t need a sitemap at all – a simple backlink will do. Or even easier, simply mention the site within twitter. I experimented the latter using a new ecommerce site with ~300 pages. The single mention of the web address in a tweet got the site fully indexed with 2 days. You can speed things up even further if you get mentioned on a very popular or authoritative site.
That’s it in a nutshell – some questionable companies are charging £500 for this! For an easy life, I’m not going to mention the company name here.
I’ll go through some of the items included on the list of “seo indexing services” that are typically offered:
- Yahoo.co.uk submission (1-2 minutes)
- Submit to Google.co.uk (1-2 minutes)
- Create robots.txt – you don’t need a robots.txt file to get your site indexed in Google or any other search engine
- Create sitemap (couple of minutes at most using XML Sitemaps
- Submission to bing (1-2 minutes, Bing is MIcrosoft’s own search engine)
- Upload sitemap to the latter 3 sites (bit of overlap here, but still, no more than 5 or 6 minutes for all 3)
- Verify sitemap in the latter 3 sites. This is a common phrase a lot of the sites I looked at made. I’m not sure if this means checking the correctness of the actual generated sitemap (which you won’t need to do if using that online generator) or checking a few days later if your site is included within say, Google (go to Google and search for site:www.YOURSITE.co.uk to check) – 5 minutes work at most.
Repeat Submissions – “The Ultimate Con”
There are companies out there who charge hundreds of pounds for this service AND charge for the service on a yearly basis. Yes – there is a further charge again the following year. You simply do not need this. If you site is relatively small you don’t need this at all – maybe get the odd backlink from twitter or facebook to keep Google interested. Or even easier, go to the official Google Add URL site – that allows you submit your site within in seconds. Additionally, after a year it’s a very plausable assumption to make that you will have naturally built up a few backlinks and Google will automatically revisiting your site.
An Example – web-design-talk.co.uk
To illustrate how easy it is to get new content included, yourself, I’ll use this very blog as example. Whenever I publish a new entry on this site I do the following:
- Ping my XML Sitemap with Google (see above how to do this)
- Post a link to the post from Twitter
- Submit the post to digg
- Mention the post on my status updates profile on the web designer forum
This all takes roughly 5 minutes and gets my site included in Google within a couple of hours – sometimes faster.
Whenever you see an SEO or Web Company offering something as shady as “SEO Indexing” take a big step back and question it. As them why is it needed regularly, why does it cost so much and why a site will backlinks will not suffice – basically, ask questions about specifically thr steps they will be taking. It’s one of those grey areas of SEO that companies are only to happy to aggresively market. Worse still, it is aimed highly at people not in the know and therefore marketed to them. E.g. when the sales person asks if you would like your site to be included in Google the customer will instinctively say yes. It’s highly questionable in my opinion and should be questioned. If you’re ever unsure, ask on a forum.
Man you are doing many people a great service by pointing out this scam. Even out in South Africa do I see many such SEO Indexing services.
I have resorted to no longer offering SEO services but instead offer SEO Training to people and companies because truth be told SEO is something anyone can do if they set aside enough time or designate someone in-house to do it.
Also offering SEO Training is a huge money saver to companies and it brings minimizes SEO ignorance which in turn helps website owners spot these scams much easier.
Great writeup Rob! I think some companies just see it as an easy money solution!!
Anyway, totally agree. Recently did a site for a client, purchased domain name at roughly 9am Wednesday morning, was able to upload site around 3.30pm the same day. Pretty much did the same as you, posted link to twitter, created a portfolio page for the site and mentioned it on Google+.
By Thursday evening the site had been fully indexed (was only a few pages). All done for a few minutes work 🙂
There are several large companies oferring this service currently. YOu can only imagine the sales pitch to the client – “would you likie our super duper seo indexing serive to get your site included in google?”. Client does a panic buy because it sounds important. It pains me 🙂
Lol 😉
The thing is, people get sucked in by it! The sales team ‘dress’ it up like it’s something radical and like they are getting an edge over their competitors!
SEO isn’t dead by a long shot, it is, however, becoming a mark of suspicion due to the unethical services of those mentioned 🙁
SEO isn’t dead by a long shot, it is, however, becoming a mark of suspicion due to the unethical services of those mentioned
Thanks for the post. Here, in Brazil, we offer the indexing for free. We just put a price in the linkbuilding service.
Great post dude, calling out those who are robbing the innocent, ignorant and uneducated clients out there. I feel really sorry for anyone buying into services they know nothing about.
SCARY!
It sickens me that companies still get away with charging for indexing. Google’s algorithm is so advance now that you dont even really have to do anything to get your site indexed. As long as you have a compliant site you should appear, I am not saying that you will not have to do SEO work to get somewhere for certain terms, but to appear on Goolgle you dont have to physically submit your site anymore.
Yep, as long your actual site is readable by Google, I find a simple mention in Twitter or on another indexed site is all it takes the majority of the time. However, a quick sitemap ping is just as effective.
Personally, I feel sorry those people not in the know who are taken in by the scare tactics from the sales people.
Nice site you have there btw.
Google webmaster tools (all of the features offered there for free) is one of the best things you can do for your SEO. I noticed that recently yahoo’s webmaster tools merged with Bing.
Thanks for the great post. Its really great post regarding seo as indexing is also the main part of the seo . i come to know about the new points on indexing. Thanks for sharing.
I agree with you at some point and it’s true numbers of companies charge clients shamelessly with huge amount of money for a few minutes work. But there are 2 sides of the coin. Numbers of services can be done by anyone just need to search the info on the net.But if everyone would do so than web designers only could charge clients for the design,developers for coding and SEOs well they would probably starving to die. I think serious web workers need to provide a reasonable price for their services including indexing etc as part of their services. You didn’t mention the numbers of free submission services on the net where you can submit and get indexed your website on hundreds of search engine at ones.There are a lot to work on in the design industry.Thanks for the amazing post and thank you to take your time to share it with us
What I’m trying to get across is that dedicated “seo indexing services” are a total farce. To get your site indexed in major search engines really doesn’t take too much effort at all. Hell, any decent web designer should be submitting your manually to Google for you. Noting the amount of actual work required to get a new indexd, I don’t see how any company could charge for more than 5 minutes of time at most.
You’re right that if their ONLY service is “getting your website indexed” and they charge $500, that is a total ripoff. However, if they do more than “index”, but also do many useful activities to increase the website RANKING – through good content writing, weekly posting on various social media sites, videos, etc.
Genuine SEO is way more than indexing – so to tie those 2 words together “seo indexing” – doesn’t really make sense, and only confuses the reader. Your article may leave the false impression that “SEO services” are not necessary – which is not true for most sites. It all depends whether they are offering TRUE optimization of their web presence, or just one tiny piece of it. (I have very rarely “submitted” my sites to search engines – they have crawlers that find you easily if you actually Optimize the site for it (the “o” in SEO). SEO is about optimizing sites to RANK them in search results, not about “indexing” them.
I’m literally referring to “SEO Indexing” only, as in a new site, not currently indexed by Google. NO offsite or on site SEO, just indexing.
All SEO isn’t just about ranking either 🙂 It’s ultimate aim to gain relevant traffic to your website that will convert.
You’re right that if their ONLY service is “getting your website indexed” and they charge $500, that is a total ripoff. However, if they do more than “index”, but also do many useful activities to increase the website RANKING – through good content writing, weekly posting on various social media sites, videos, etc. – then that takes alot of time, and the worker is worthy of his wages in taking the time to do all that – saving a business owner lots of time and money.
Genuine SEO is way more than indexing – so to tie those 2 words together “seo indexing” – doesn’t really make sense, and only confuses the reader. Your article may leave the false impression that “SEO services” are not necessary – which is not true for most sites. It all depends whether they are offering TRUE optimization of their web presence, or just one tiny piece of it. (I have very rarely “submitted” my sites to search engines – they have crawlers that find you easily if you actually Optimize the site for it (the “o” in SEO). SEO is about optimizing sites to RANK them in search results, not about “indexing” them.
Thanks Rob! I followed your basic instructions and found the indexing process easy. So beyond indexing what are the other “above board” SEO services one should consider paying for?
Hi,
Manual link building is one – this would involve a human being getting relevant and contextual links to your site. I’m not referring to anything nasty like mass web directories. Of course, there is the otehr side too, CRO – if you;re already getting a decent volume of traffic that is something worth paying for.
Ask your SEO company exactly what they’ll be doing. If there’re open and honest and everything is “white hat” then you’ll be fine. Avoid places that mention link networks or private blog networks.
Remeber, if done correctly, SEO is a manual and time consuming process and does cost. IF an SEO company is charging soemthing silly like £40 a month to rank you for some comp0etitive terms ask yourself why 🙂
Years ago it the Sale angle was to get listed in FFA sites. “Free for All” directories that are low value and usually will start contacting the submitted site for reciprocal links or possible selling their email address to advertisers.
Greetings from France – sorry for my bad English!
I am currently having website done by a digital agency I use for my business marketing. They oferred me Google express website include service where for 85 euros they say my new site will be in Google within 3 days, or I will receive all monies back. Is thatr the same scenario you are describing about in your informative blog post or is it a different service that I would be needing to pay monies?
Thanks you
Hello,
Your English is fine 🙂
85 Euros is roughly £70, which is a lot of money to get your site included. I’d recommend getting a backlink from say a fridn’s Twitter or Facebook profile. Alternatively, get mentioned on an already indexed website. ANy of those will have the same effect. I really wouldn’t be paying any company to submit a site to Google. It’s even worse by you saying that the company in question are developing you a new website – surely submitting to Google should be part of the cost.
Rob
Thank you very much, helped me alot to get my new site indexed.
Thanks for your post, it helps me to index my site..
thanks for the tips on how to get my websites indexed quickly.
thanks for the tips on how to get my website indexed quickly
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