Google Basics

Getting Indexed In Google

Google uses a program called a 'spider' to scan servers on the Internet for websites. It 'reads' the html code behind the website and logs that information in its database. It then uses another program to categorize these websites for the purpose of making its index 'searchable'. Think of Google as an Internet librarian.

To see if your website is in Google, go to Google and in the search box type in site:www.[yourdomainname]

For example: site:poweradvocates.com

This will reveal which pages of your website, if any, are indexed in Google. If your website is not in Google, submitting it here may take care of that, since you are giving Google a specific address to find. But remember, if it's not optimized for a specific set of targeted search terms, submitting doesn't mean your site will get you ranked for relevant terms.

Another reason your site might not be in Google's index is if it is primarily graphics or 'flash'. Google pays particular attention to the text on a website. A site that has little real text gives very little for Google to index. This includes a website that has text in the form of an image, such as a 'jpeg'. To Google, it's just an image and any text contained in the image is unreadable. For example, you are reading real text in this article, but the text in my logo at the top of this page ('The PowerAdvocates Network of Legal Websites') is contained in an image, which is unreadable to Google.

The same holds true for a flash website. Flash is a platform for animating websites. These sites usually have nice looking, interesting animation that may be pleasing to the eye, but are absent in search engines. The small image at the top right hand corner is in flash. To me, a purely flash website defeats the purpose of marketing your firm online. If you want some animation, include it as small compenents withing your static pages.

PageRank and Google's Toolbar

Google uses something called PageRank (PR) to grade websites on a scale of 1-10. How to improve your PR is the subject of much anguish and debate on Internet message forums. So what's your PR?

To find out, you must use Google's Toolbar, a small, free application that resides on your computer and integrates with your browser. Once you've installed the toolbar, go to preferences and check the box to show PR. PR appears in the form of a green bar at the top of your browser. It doesn't give you a number, but you can pretty much tell if your PR is a five, six, etc. by how long the green bar is. The PR of a particular website appears when you visit that site.

PR is utilized when ranking websites. If your website, for instance, is optimized for 'California criminal lawyer', when a person searches using this phrase, a number of websites will be returned by Google as relevant. How the sites are organized depends, in part, on the PR of each site. All things being equal, if your site is a PR 6 and the next site is a PR 5, yours will most likely rank higher. I must qualify this by saying all things are seldom equal, but having a high PR is essential to getting high rankings.

The Search Result Page

From the Google home page, Google provides 5 primary ways to search:

Searching in Web will produce websites that are in the Google index. The search result page has a number of nuances. Let's take an example. Search for 'personal injury lawyer chicago' in Google with no quotes. A number of items pop up.

First, Google tells you that approximately 12,400,000 websites are in its index that it considers relevant to that search. The next thing you will see are two shaded boxes labeled 'Sponsored Link'. These are advertisements. These premium ads are expensive.

Below the Sponsored Links are the website results. These are the websites in Google's index that were scanned by its spider. These listings are free and are ranked according to Google's PR, relevancy, etc. These listings are the focus of the search engine optimization efforts we've been discussing.

From our search, we're looking for a Chicago personal injury lawyer. The first listing of 'http://dwyer.poweradvocates.com' is a personal injury law firm in Chicago that just happens to be part of the PowerAdvocates Network (what a coincidence). Let's break down the listing.

The name of the website is actually the title of the website as defined by the 'title' tag in the html code. This is why it is important to include your keywords in your title, as discussed last week. Click on the listing and you will see the title of the site at the top of your browser.

Following the title is some text. Google sometimes uses the description meta tag and other times will pull actual text from the website that includes some of the keywords from your search. This is why it is important to include your keywords in both your description tag and the text of your website.

After Category you will see 'Cached' and 'Similar Pages'. The most useful tool is 'Cached'. Clicking on this link reveals what version of the website Google has indexed. If the version of your website in Google's index is old, this might explain any problems you are having getting better rankings for new search terms.

To the right you will see several shaded boxes. These are called Google AdWords. This is Google's system of pay-per-click advertising. Using AdWords, you can bid on particular search terms. Your ad appears in a shaded box when that term is searched and you pay the going rate if your ad is actually clicked upon.

Conclusion

These are the basics of Google. There is much more to Google that is worthy of some time exploring and tinkering.