Test your site for errors.

LA Grouch · 08-23-2009, 03:10 PM

You should make sure your site is crawler friendly and free from errors.

Google has many free tools available to help us build and maintain a healthy site. One of these is Webmaster Tools.

Google Webmaster Tools is a no-charge web service by Google for webmasters. It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites.

It has tools that let the webmaster:

* Check and set the crawl rate
* List internal and external pages that link to the site
* See the PageRank of your site
* See what keyword searches on Google led to the site being listed in the SERPs, and the click through rates of such listings
* View statistics about how Google indexes the site
* Submit and check a sitemap
* Generate and check a robots.txt file
* Set a preferred domain (i.e prefer mysite.com over www.mysite.com or vice versa).

If something is not working correctly, Google will let you know about it.

Use your Google account to sign in, or register for a free account.

Niche · 08-23-2009, 06:54 PM

The webmasters tools account is pretty useful. I think anyone serious about this business who is doing Search Engine Optimization needs to make sure they get a webmasters tools account

LA Grouch · 08-23-2009, 08:34 PM

I agree.

Google has a lot of useful free tools that can help with the Search Engine Optimization of your site. Most people either don't know about them or don't want to bother to learn.

I notice that quite a few people jump into online marketing and think all they have to do is submit to SE's and put links in their sig.

I was in another forum where a newbie swore he/she had done everything by the book, but was getting no visitors.
I asked about their sitemap and robots.txt file. They had no clue what I was talking about.

Some people think they can skip a step or two and still be OK... not so.