Site Listings Vs. Indexing, The Truth

Every once and a while I get a little bugged about the difference between site listings versus indexing. The difference is not just the nomenclature of the English language but far greater than that. The simple reason is that many marketers would have you believe that they are one in the same, but they are definitely not.

I bring this up because some marketers actually sell you on getting your site “indexed within 48 hours,” when in fact it will be indexed almost automatically within the same period of time by Google, Yahoo and MSN Live.  Site indexing is the process of having your site “crawled” by a search engine spider.  In the case of Google it’s Googlebot.  Most times you can see the spider visits in your site logs.  If your hosting account doesn’t provide log stats you should consider getting a better hosting account. Site indexing is very close to being automatic and should take place within first 48 hours of your site going online.

Getting your site to come up in the search results pages is a completely different issue, and one that some unscrupulous marketers push to the limits bordering outright fraud. Strong words but it really bothers me when I see it taking place. For the record: Search results listings are the listings that come up for keyword searches within a search site. For example if you enter “bass fishing gear” in the search bar on Google, the result is a number of sites that come up in the “organic” results of the search. Organic results are the listings that appear on the left hand side of the search listings below the paid listings that are directly on top in a lightly shaded and directly to the right in a vertical column.

These organic listings are tied to specific keywords associated with your site. It can take weeks or months for your keywords to rank within the search engine organic results. This part of the listing process is referred to as Search Engine Optimization and is a wholly and completely different process that can fill volumes on tactics ranging from keyword placement through website content.

So when you see an ad that says “get listed in Google within 48 hours,” don’t waste your money. You can do that part of it yourself. Instead search for SEO advice and assistance within the search engines.

You can start here for SEO Information. on the Home Business Research SEO Guide.