Thirdi SEO Tips & Techniques – Get A Site Indexed With Webmaster Tools

By Keith | May 20th, 2009

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One of the greatest tools Google, Yahoo and MSN has offered to site owners is their Webmaster Tools, a somewhat comprehensive look at what a search engine knows about a website. Out of the big three, Google has the best offering, showing nifty things like which pages are 404ing, redirect loops, top search queries, inbound links, and much more. While Webmaster tools are aimed at the more technically minded, there is one overarching advantage I’ve seen that, I believe, a number of people seem to overlook.

Once upon a time, SEOs would have to submit their website to DMOZ and the Yahoo directory to let search engines know a site existed, but the real advantage to webmaster tools is the fact that it guarantees a spider visit, as you have to verify the site either by adding a line to the <head> field of the homepage, or by uploading a 1kb file to the root directory. By going through this verification process, you’re basically telling a search engine “Here I am!” I’ve seen sites get indexed, literally, within hours after completing a verification process! Even if you don’t use the extremely useful suite of tools that you get for free, it’s worth the effort just to go through the verification process.

You can sign up for Google Webmaster Tools here. Yahoo has Site Explorer, which is not as involved as Google’s WMTools, but still valuable. Lastly, MSN Webmaster Tools can be found here. All in all, Webmaster tools are the quickest, and cheapest method of guaranteeing your site will get indexed!

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Tags: search engine optimization, SEO, SEO Tips

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