Am I indexed? Google Webmaster Tools

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MOH

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Built a sitemap and submitted a site to google last week.

Site wasn't showing up at all, fair enough, I've spent the last week submitting it to whatever free Irish business/website directories I could find. Have maybe a half dozen backlinks.

If I google 'my business name' it now shows up as the first entry, where before I was only seeing the directory entries to it - I assume that means it's indexed?

I'm confused because webmaster tools is showing that it processed my sitemap yesterday, found 6 URLs (correct) but that none of them are indexed. And all of the other webmaster tools pages show 'no data available'

If I do a search for my main keywords, and add dublin, I don't appear in the first 30 pages of results (although I do show up on page 3 of Local Business Results, though I assume that just means I have a google maps marker).

I would have though that if I'm showing in the SERP for 'my business name', I'd appear somewhere in the SERPs for 'business type dublin', even if it was on page 20 - or does it not work like that?
 
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Kieran

Guest
First answer is that yes you re indexed.

On Google Local Business is is 'easier' to get listed on that if there aren't too many people who have submitted in your actual category. I did it for someone yesterday evening and they were on the first page in 10 minutes for their keywords. They were really happy but if other people in the niche start submitting then he may move of if his SEO isn't good enough.

Which leads to the answer to the last part of your question. It may take some time before your SERPs improve even beyond page 20 if it is a competitive keyword it will mean a lot of on page and more importantly off page SEO. It seems you are building links which is part of the process but it can take some time for Google to give you the value for this.

Best of luck with it.
 
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MOH

New Member
Thanks for the quick reply - just had a bright idea, limited the results to 'past week' and popped up on page 3.

Now that I know I've at least enough links for google to look at it I can look at improving the links and on-page SEO.

Thanks
 
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link8r

New Member
MOH said:
Built a sitemap and submitted a site to google last week.
Click to expand...

Good first move! Submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee indexing of course, its just a better tool than having Google crawl the pages blindly, which it will do anyway.

MOH said:
Site wasn't showing up at all, fair enough, I've spent the last week submitting it to whatever free Irish business/website directories I could find. Have maybe a half dozen backlinks.
Click to expand...

A week isn't long for a brand new domain that isn't indexed. However - being crawled and being indexed and what you are indexed for are three different matters. First you have to be crawled, then you will be indexed, then you will (hopefully) appear in more indices.

MOH said:
If I google 'my business name' it now shows up as the first entry, where before I was only seeing the directory entries to it - I assume that means it's indexed?
Click to expand...

If you see your domain name in search results, then its safe to say your domain is indexed

MOH said:
I'm confused because webmaster tools is showing that it processed my sitemap yesterday, found 6 URLs (correct) but that none of them are indexed. And all of the other webmaster tools pages show 'no data available'
Click to expand...

Some things to note:

  1. Crawling and indexing are separate(i.e. You can be crawled and not indexed )
  2. Your URLs - lets call your home page Tier 1 and everything down Tier 2-Tier x - they probably don't have links yet and probably aren't indexed yet - not suprising
  3. Your home page tends to be the most important page by default, so it's likely to be the first indexed page
  4. you will be indexed for you domain name/brand name - that doesn't mean you will feature (highly or at all) for other keywords/other indexes (an index is a set of websites indexed for a keyword/phrase)
  5. Webmaster data is not live data and it can take a while to load. Also, as you're not appearing in any indexes, there problably isn't data to show. I definitely believe it's also an explicit subset of data that it does show - I have a site with 1,500 products (is highly ranked for Gifts) and the data shown is fractional compared to that with our SERPs and Analytics data

MOH said:
If I do a search for my main keywords, and add dublin, I don't appear in the first 30 pages of results (although I do show up on page 3 of Local Business Results, though I assume that just means I have a google maps marker).
Click to expand...

You don't show becuase you aren't indexed or aren';t high on the index/results - and you're very new - 10 inbound links isn't a lot - it depends on the competition (are we talking hotels, hotels+dublin? you might want to wait a good while - with 10 IBLs you may never show)

MOH said:
I would have though that if I'm showing in the SERP for 'my business name', I'd appear somewhere in the SERPs for 'business type dublin', even if it was on page 20 - or does it not work like that?
Click to expand...

No. Showing is about Relevancy and Authority. You've established that you think you're relevant - but maybe you're just not important (Authority) enough yet to show. Google has a Search Quality mandate - so it can't show sites will nilly. Expect nothing for up to a month or more, depending on the search competition. If you were hoping to rank for something with a really low result index, then you could show, within hours maybe. And of course it is possible but you're not going to show automatically/by default - which is what I think you're expecting?
 
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MOH

New Member
Wow, thanks for all that. Just trying to get an idea of how the whole process works, that's cleared a good bit up for me.
 
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