Check that your site is listed on all the major search engines

For this exercise, you'll need:-

• A spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3
• A list of the URLs of all the different pages on your site

First, open a new spreadsheet, and lay it out as follows:-

In the above table, replace the "www.yourdomain.com/yoururl.htm" part with the appropriate URLs for your own site. Add all the major search engines, one per column. I have just added 4 search engines in this example, but you can put as many as you like. List the URLs of all the major sections of your site, one per line.

Done that? It's nearly time to go searching for your site... Remember: each time you find one of your pages listed in a search engine, put a cross in the relevant box on your spreadsheet. When you've finished checking your whole site, you'll have a complete overview of which pages are listed in which search engines, and you'll know exactly where you need to focus your promotion efforts.

Your results might look something like this:-

In the example above, you'll notice that the main page is listed in all the major search engines [you should consider this the minimum requirement of a successful and effective promotion campaign]. Problem areas are highlighted in red. It might be worth resubmitting those pages to the relevant search engines, then waiting a few weeks and repeating this exercise to see if matters have improved in the interim.

Ok, now on to those searches...

Find your site listings in AltaVista

To find the pages from your site that are listed in AltaVista, type one of the following into the AltaVista search box:-

url:yourdomain.com
[To search for all pages under a given domain]

url:yourdomain.com/directory/
[To search for all pages under a specific subdirectory of a site]

url:yourdomain.com/directory/page.htm
[To search for a specific page]

Repeat the above exercise until you have found all the pages from your site that are listed with AltaVista.

Find your site listings in Excite

Note: There is no "perfect" way to find all your pages in Excite. The following method will work reasonably well, but you will have to spend some time sifting through the results.

To find the pages from your site that are listed in Excite, type one of the following into the Excite search box:-

+www.yourdomain.com
[This will return all the pages from a given domain, and all pages that link to that domain. After that, you'll have to sift the pages manually]

+www.yourdomain.com +directory
[This will return all the pages from a given site and subdirectory, and all pages that link to the subdirectory. After that, you'll have to sift the pages manually.]

You can also improve your results if you can pinpoint a rare or unique word on the pages you are looking for. For instance, if your name is Xaviar and you have put your name on every page of your site, you could add +Xaviar to the end of a query and sift nearly all the junk away, leaving only your own pages.

Find your site listings in HotBot

To find the pages from your site that are listed in HotBot, simply head over to the special page HotBot has produced for checking if pages are listed. You simply fill in a few boxes and bingo there's a list of your pages. Nice and easy -- pity the other search engines can't be as tidy about the process!

Find your site listings in Infoseek

There are two completely separate ways to look up a page in Infoseek. Please look at both choices carefully, then select the appropriate one depending on what you want to achieve.

1) To find the pages from your site that are listed in Infoseek, enter one of the following into the Infoseek search box:-

url:yourdomain.com
[To search for all pages under a given domain]

url:yourdomain.com/directory/
[To search for all pages under a specific subdirectory of a site]

url:yourdomain.com/directory/page.htm
[To search for a specific page]

NOTE: The syntax is exactly the same as for queries on AltaVista!

2) If a search like the one in 1) above does not show up your page, but you know you submitted it to Infoseek recently, try this: head over to the Check the Status of a URL Submission page. Enter the URL you want to check in the box provided, and you'll get a brief explanation of what's happening to your page. It may be that Infoseek cannot determine what happened (Status Unknown) in which case if the search in 1) also failed it's time to resubmit your site. You may also get a message saying that a submission is in progress; if that's the case, give Infoseek a couple of days and then check again.

Find your site listings in Lycos

Lycos offers a simple but very slow way to check which pages are listed in its catalog: head over to the Lycos URL Finder and enter the full path of each URL you would like to check. Repeat until you drop dead from exhaustion or you have located all the pages.

Note: There is one added bonus to this process -- if your page is NOT listed, the results page will give you an opportunity to submit it to Lycos. Don't get too carried away though; remember those rules of sensible search engine management and only submit the main parts of your site to Lycos.

Find your site listings in Northern Light

To find the pages from your site that are listed in Northern Light, type one of the following into the Northern Light search box:-

url:www.yourdomain.com
[To search for all pages under a given domain]

url:www.yourdomain.com/directory/
[To search for all pages under a specific subdirectory of a site]

url:www.yourdomain.com/directory/page.htm
[To search for a specific page]

Note: This is similar to the syntax of the AltaVista and Infoseek queries, but you MUST put the "www" part of the URL in otherwise the results will be messed up.

Repeat the above exercise until you have found all the pages from your site that are listed with Northern Light.

Find your site listings in WebCrawler

The process is just as messy as the one for finding pages in Excite (see earlier on this page) -- and in fact it is identical since both sites are driven from the same database! However, you will find fewer pages in WebCrawler, as Excite is the larger site. Please refer to the section on Excite (above) to find out how to find your pages in WebCrawler.

Find your site listings in Yahoo!

Note: Unless you are very lucky, you'll usually have only one listing for your site on Yahoo!, corresponding to the main page of the site. Just type one of the following to find your site:-

yourdomain.com
[To search for all pages under a given domain]

yourdomain.com/directory/
[To search for all pages under a specific subdirectory of a site]

yourdomain.com/directory/page.htm
[To search for a specific page]

Note: 99.9% of the time, Yahoo! will only list the one page you submit, so it is not worth spending a long time searching for other pages from your site.

In Conclusion

The process of checking your site's listings is a long and somewhat tedious one; however, this is a must if you really want to maximize the results from your listings with the search engines. As a rule of thumb, you should aim to get your main page listed in Yahoo!, and the main pages of each distinct section of your site listed with all the other search engines. After that, you'll have exhausted the power of the search engines, and it's high time to look for other ways to boost your site's online presence!