Why did Google discontinue SearchMash?

 **SearchMash** was an experimental, non-branded search engine that Google used to be able to play around with new search technologies, concepts and interfaces. It was first introduced in October 2006, and unveiled to the public exactly one year after that. Some people actually traded in Google’s search engine for SearchMash, were apparently quite pleased with the experience and are now sad to see it go.

The service wasn’t meant to attract a mass of users, but rather for Google to play around with meta-search features (results for web, images, video and Wikipedia were blended together), third-party integration (it used Snap for previewing landing pages of outside links), user interface experiments (like ‘infinite scroll’ that allowed you to view as many search results on the same page) and technologies (it had an Ajax and Flash / Flex version).

There’s something inherently strange about Google not having used **SearchMash** as a playground for trying out the **SearchWiki** features, and even more so that they decided to quietly kill it while at the same launching the latter.

How to Get Pages Indexed by Google, Quickly?

If a page isn’t in Google’s index, there’s 0% chance that it will receive organic traffic.

Indexation, in an over simplified nutshell, is step 2 in Google’s ranking process:

• Crawling
• Indexing
• Ranking

This article will focus on how to get Googlebot to index more pages on your site, faster.

How to check if your pages are indexed by Google

The first step is understanding what your website’s indexation rate is.

Indexation rate = # of pages in Google’s index / # of pages on your site

You can review how many pages your website has indexed in Google Search Console’s “Index Coverage Status Report“.

If you see errors or a large number of pages outside of the index:

• Your sitemap might have URLs that are non-indexable (i.e. pages set to NOINDEX, blocked via robots.txt or require user login)
• Your site might have a large number ‘low quality’ or duplicate pages that Google deems unworthy
• Your site might not have enough ‘authority’ to justify all the pages

You can dig into the specifics in the table underneath (this is an awesome new feature in Google’s updated Search Console).

 

How to get pages on your site indexed

I hate to be cliche, but you really need to deliver the right experience to get Google’s attention. If your site doesn’t meet Google’s guidelines in regards to trust, authority and quality, these tips will likely not work for you.

With that being said, you can use these tactics to improve your site’s indexation rate.

 

1. Use Fetch As Google

Google Search Console has a feature allowing you to input a URL for Google to “Fetch”. After submission, Googlebot will visit your page and index.

Here’s how to do it…

• Log into Google Search Console
• Navigate to Crawl Fetch as Google
• Take the URL you’d like indexed and paste it into the search bar
• Click the Fetch button
• After Google had found the URL, click Submit to Index

Assuming the page is indexable, it will be picked up within a few hours.

 

2. Use internal links

Search engines crawl from page to page through HTML links.

Image credit

We can use authority pages on your site to push equity to others. I like to use Ahrefs “best pages by links” report.

This report tells me the most authoritative pages on my site – I can simply add an internal link from here to a page that needs equity.

It’s important to note, the 2 interlinking pages need to be relevant – it’s not a good idea to link unrelated pages together.

Read my guide about internal linking silos

 

3. Block low quality pages from Google’s index

While content is a cornerstone of a high quality website, the wrong content can be your demise. Too many low quality pages can decrease the number of times Google crawls, indexes and ranks your site..

For that reason, we want to periodically “prune” our website’s by removing the garbage pages

Pages that serve no value should be:

• Set to NOINDEX. When the page still has value to your audience, but not search engines (think thank you pages, paid landing pages, etc).
• Blocked via crawl through Robots.txt file. When an entire set of pages has value to your audience, but not search engines (think archives, press releases).
• 301 redirected. When the page has no value to your audience or search engines, but has existing traffic or links (think old blog posts with links).
• Deleted (404). When the page has no value to your audience or search engines, and has no existing traffic or links.

We’ve built a content audit tool to help you with this process.

 

4. Include the page in your sitemap

Your sitemap is a guide to help search engines understand which pages on your site are important.

Having a page in your sitemap does NOT guarantee indexation, but having failing to include important pages will decrease indexation.

If your site is running on WordPress, it’s incredibly easy to setup and submit a sitemap using a plugin (I like Yoast).

Read more about how to build a sitemap

Once your sitemap is built and submit is GSC, you can review in the Sitemaps report.

Double check to make sure all pages you want indexed are included. Triple check to make sure all pages you DON’T want indexed are NOT included.

 

5. Share the page on Twitter

Twitter is a powerful network that Google crawls regularly (they index Tweets, too).

It’s a no brainer to share your content on social media, but it’s also an easy way to give Google a nudge.

 

6. Share the page on high traffic sites

Sites like Reddit and Quora are popular sites that allow you to drop links. I make it a regular practice to promote recently published pages on Quora – it helps with indexation, but also can drive a ton of traffic.

If you’re feeling lazy (and grey hat), you can buy “social signals” on sites like Fiver.

 

7. Secure external links to the page

As previously mentioned, Google crawls from page to page through HTML links.

Getting other websites to link to yours is not only a huge ranking factor, but a great way to pick up the indexation of your website.

The easiest ways to get links:

• Guest post on a relevant, authoritative website
• Find relevant bloggers or media sites and reach out with an advertising request

This is grossly over simplified – you can check out my top link building tactics for more ideas.

 

8. “Ping” your website

Sites like Ping-O-Matic that send “pings” to search engines to notify them that your blog has been updated.

Honestly, it’s not the greatest method – but it’s fast, free and easy to use.

Source: https://webris.org/google-index/

Google Update 10th August 2020 – what we know so far.

From what we can tell, Google has begun rolling out an enormous Google Search ranking algorithm update from the 10th of August. While it is yet to be officially confirmed by Google’s Search Liaison, the chatter amongst the SEO and search community is loud and clear: so far, it does not look good.

From what it looks like, the Google Update began to roll out at around 2 pm ET on the 10th of August. The most significant changes seem to be rankings, with no real clear algorithm pattern. With many speculating that the update looks more like a bug or a bad algorithm test, page one rankings for many authoritative and successful websites seem to have tanked.

In the case of SEO in Australia, we’ve seen all of our competitors and the big players in our industry suffer on page one. A couple of our clients are being outranked by forums, dynamically generated amazon listings, random Facebook posts and even job listings. What is going on here?

We’re still not sure what’s happening. From what we can tell, the algorithm shift has adjusted search engine rankings to have poor-quality pages gaining the top ten spots on search results. Our early research into the algorithm shifts have also uncovered that many local search results are being completely outranked by eBay, Amazon, directory listings and cloaking websites that are not only irrelevant but incredibly spammy for these types of searches.

From what we have analysed, the results that were ranking on page one yesterday now all seem to be sitting on page six, seven and eight of Google. Page one is mysteriously cluttered with spammy, cloaking, phishing websites. Ecommerce websites have seemed to slip in favour of forum, directory and social media listings.

There is plenty of speculation happening on Twitter, Webmaster World, and SEO forums. While there are a couple of people mentioning that their sites have benefitted from the SERP changes, the majority are reporting on a brutal shift in their traffic and rankings. Worldwide, many have reported that their sites are being de-ranked in favour of spammy websites and directory listings. There has also been a lot of talk about drastic changes within short spaces of time – with results being updated every 30 minutes or so for some.

It makes little sense for Google to have the first pages of search results filled with unrelated forums, cloaking websites and social media websites and directory listings. Google’s success over competing search engines is that its algorithm provides the most logical and pleasing user experience. By way of logic, it would seem that this update is not in line with providing high quality and useful organic search results.

Again, it is far too early to conclude on anything but regular checks on SERP trends and it’s pretty clear that something huge is happening. Google is yet to confirm any changes. There’s every chance we’re witnessing an enormous glitch or bug. But there’s also a chance that this may be a part of a new Google search ranking algorithm update.

Continue to monitor your rankings and watch for any changes. If we’ve learnt anything from previous Google algorithm updates, it’s important to wait it out until the update has fully rolled out or Google has confirmed the suspicions. Don’t do anything drastic, and if your website has suddenly tanked in the search engine results; you’re not alone.