Sep 22nd, 2008
ONE BLOG METRIC STAT YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR EYE ON
Blog metrics is all about measuring and there are a lot of different variable that need measuring. However, if you are writing a post on your blog every day then you need to know whether or not the new posts are being indexed promptly.
It is very easy to check both Google and Yahoo to see how many pages have been indexed at any given moment. If your pages are not being indexed then you will need to investigate why.
To check how many pages are indexed in Google, follow the steps below:
Go to Google.com
In the search bar enter site:yourURL - use the correct URL either with or without the WWW
Click search
In the results screen, you should see towards the top right, “Results 1-10 of about 100 from yoursite”. You should also check the bottom of the screen to see if the words “repeat the search with the omitted results included”.
This will provide you with an indication of how many pages have been indexed by Google. Repeat the search either adding or removing the WWW depending on the first search. If your site has the preference set for using the WWW and there are a significant number of pages indexed without the WWW then you may need to investigate and perhaps incorporate some 301 redirects.
You can repeat the process at Yahoo! using Yahoo.com instead to see how many pages Yahoo! have indexed. Don’t stress too much if the Google shows more pages indexed than Yahoo! This is normal since Yahoo! can be slower at indexing than Google.
What is important is that as you add content, the number of indexed pages should grow. If you know you have far more pages than those showing in the index search, you may need to check on your robots and sitemap files to ensure they sending the Googlebot in the right directions, and that pages haven’t been blocked.
The more content you have indexed, the more traffic you are likely to generate from the search engines.