Why Hasn't My Web Page Been Indexed Yet?
There are a number of factors that come into play when search engines index new web pages. Generally, it doesn't take more than a few weeks for a new web page to be indexed. However, with millions of new pages being indexed daily, this time frame is not guaranteed, and it can take months for new pages to show up. Also, it is common to find a content or technical problem that is causing the page to either not be indexed or be "penalized" by search engines.
Other People Are Reading
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Identification
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When you create a new web page, you want it to show up on search engines when someone does a query that relates to the content of the page. For this to happen, the page must be indexed by the search engine. Search engines use technology called spiders that crawl the Internet in search of new content. When new content is found, it is indexed so it will show up if someone does a search query or types in the web page address (URL) of the page. If you create a page and are not able to get it to show up on a search results page no matter what the query, the page is probably not indexed by the search engine.
Duplicate Content
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One thing to look out for if your web page does not appear to have been indexed is duplicate content. Most search engines will penalize sites and pages that have duplicate or very similar content to another page. If you have copied content from another site, your web page might in fact have been indexed, but because duplicate content was discovered, the page is penalized and does not show up on search results.
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Hidden Links
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There are some types of website navigation that might be hidden from search engine spiders. These are in non-HTML programming language, such as Java Script or Flash. Search engine spiders might not be able to crawl this content, and if that is the case it will not be indexed.
URL Structure
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The URL is the web page address that appears in your browser navigation bar. In some cases, overly complex URLs that are too long might not get indexed by search engines. To avoid this problem, structure URLs so they are short and have only relevant keywords included.
Robots.txt File
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A robots.txt file provides information to search engines on which pages on a web site should be crawled. Robots.txt files can be accessed in a text editor such as notepad.exe and are found in the root directory of your web server. These files can be used to disallow the search engines from indexing a particular page or file on your site, and are usually used when a webmaster has content they do not want indexed by search engines. If for some reason a robots.txt file is attached to a page you want indexed, it will prevent this from happening and must be removed by accessing the file in a text editor.
Considerations
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For most search engines, you can type the command of "site:www.yourwebsite.com" (without the quotes) into the search query box to see what pages on your site are indexed. If you find that a page has been indexed but does not show up on search results for keywords or titles on the page, you might have a problem related to search engine optimization (SEO) or incoming links that cite your page's content. Both of these are major factors in having a web page show up on search results.
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References
- Photo Credit computer image by peter Hires Images from Fotolia.com
