Because of the fact that I am never 100% happy with my testing results, I decided to run a new test on some new domains. Last year I posted about the fact that it is pretty easy to get your domain in googles index, but now recently I have seen some changes. For the sake of clarity I will label them domain A and domain B.
Details on Domain A :
- a previously registered .COM domain
- has google analytics code on the page
- has google adsense on the page
- only one page, this page in the google index.
- plain HTML site
- no previous versions of the site listed on www.archive.org
- registered in January 2009
- sitemap not submitted to google
Details on Domain B
- a new .IE domain
- doesn’t have google analytics installed
- doesn’t have google adsense installed.
- multiple pages, 3 in the google index
- wordpress based site
- registered in January 2009
- sitemap not submitted to google
Because domain A is a dropped domain, it is likely that thare are some links to this site. These could be from websites that list dropping domain names, or links to the domain before it dropped. In the past I have seen that google has discounted these, and often won’t list them completely. Google is very good at cleaning the slate for domains when they drop.
In the past getting a dropped domain to be indexed, was harder than getting a new domain to be indexed. Buying old domains, and recycling links was something Blackhat SEOs did in the past, and as expected Google has gotten a smarter over time. So I was suprised when I saw that the site:domainA.com operator on google was showing this domain
And for domain B with zero links, and hasn’t been submitted to search engines, it is indeed baffling why it would start to be listed in the SERPS.
Yahoo & Google Listing Differences
When I compare what yahoo and google lists for these domains, there is also a big difference. Yahoo doesn’t have any listings for either domain, and for all intensive purposes, it doesn’t exist in their eyes, and on the other hand Google is fully aware of these sites, and is listing Domain B for certain keywords. This would lead me to the conclusion that it is something on google’s side, and the only obvious advantage for Google is that I have browsed both sites with Google’s internet browser Google Chrome . After a bit of searching I wasn’t able to find any mention that Gogole Chrome can get your domain listed, but I do know that from their privacy terms it is possible that what you type into the browser is sent back to them. Google Chrome Privacy Info
“When you type URLs or queries in the address bar, the letters you type are sent to Google so the Suggest feature can automatically recommend terms or URLs you may be looking for.”
So this might be yet another way to make sure that your domain gets indexed by google.
1.21.2009
Very nice article,
I thought so. I mean, using Chrome allows Google to see everything you are doing, so it could also help them improving indexing.
1.21.2009
thanks for the comment Hendrik (btw. your comment was labeled as SPAM by askimet). I don’t think it will help overall indexing, rather more discovery of new domains.
1.21.2009
as B is a wordpress based site . have you posted an article with it? if yes -> webblogs.com gets pinged -> google fetches data -> indexes it into blogsearch -> google index
i don’t think it’s chrome, if it would a lot of my project in the works domains would be in there, they aren’t.
1.22.2009
Interesting point. I had a lot of questions concerning Chrome. For one it will devalue websites below the top 3 even further (due to their suggest box in the url). Another thing I was puzzled by chrome was the fact it may affect peoples PPC campaigns. If I run a campaign for car parts. On chrome if a user begins type “car” into the url, they will get the top 3 results. So will that mean less people going to the google search page.
Sorry I have waffled enough. Took your advice by the way. Converted my joomla site into a wordpress (all be it a little bare boned at the mo).
Thanks
Kieran
1.23.2009
@Franz : B it is a wordpress blog, but no new posts were made on it.
@Kieran: well done on the migration. I wouldn’t worry too much on the effect of Chrome on PPC campaigns. It’s only worse for Google, as people won’t click their ads. The only thing is that TypeIn traffic might look higher for Chrome users because of this. So you may not see the search query in the referral.
Thanks for the comments
Paul