When will my website appear in Google?

A corporate website’s launch, i.e. the moment when the website is published, is actually not equivalent to instantly appearing in Google search results.

If a newly created website replaces an old one, Google only needs to update the information in its own database (called the index) with respect to the new information. However, if an entirely new website with a new URL address is published, Google needs to find it first and add it to the index.
It is possible to add a URL to Google under http://www.google.pl/addurl/?continue=/addurl. However, no one has ever confirmed that this actually works or how long one needs to wait for a website to be added. SEO specialists never use it and claim that in order for a website to be added to the index (=indexed) Googlebot needs to find it first.

Googlebot

The main software in each search engine is the web crawler or web spider. It is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in an orderly fashion, as users normally do through web browsers. A crawler visits URLs which it has in its index on a regular basis and scans their content. It discovers pages by harvesting all unrestricted links on every page it finds. It then follows these links to other web pages, as well as visits any other URLs it encounters. It also scans the content of the pages it examines, which can then be used to evaluate a given website (but this is a topic for another article).

In order to add a website to Google’s index, Googlebot first needs to be “invited” to it. The only way to achieve this is to insert hyperlinks to the website on external pages which have already been indexed. A good start would be to submit the website (providing its title, description, sometimes also the keywords) to web directories. There are thousands of them but it is worth taking into account at least the main ones, as well as those which are highly ranked in search results for keywords that interest us (it is enough to type in a phrase comprising the word “directory” and our desired keyword).

• Best of The Web
• Starting Point
• JoeAnt
• The WWW Virtual Library
• AboutUs

And one more address – the ODP (Open Directory Project), which is linked to Google. Not only does appearing here enable instant indexing in a search engine but it also adds value to the website. Unfortunately, the waiting time might once again be a drag. Moreover, even a website which has been submitted a number of times may never appear in the directory. It all depends on the administrators’ subjective opinion. Some even say that administrators in certain categories are so corrupt that they won’t accept websites unless they are additionally paid for this?

Apart from web directories, hyperlinks can also be added to partner websites. It is worth asking partners if this would be possible.
There are many other methods of increasing the number of external hyperlinks leading to a web page – they are all part of the so-called “link building strategy”, which I will focus on in another article.

Having added the links the only thing to do is wait. Googlebot’s visit on the website depends on how often it visits websites where we added hyperlinks. Sometimes a few days is enough, sometimes we might even have to wait a few weeks.