Where can I search for someone and get results free?

Our site is being filtered from Google search results.

• My company has set up a web site. The base URL of the site is http://www.ledgaming.com The site is for the promotion of our 3 slot machines which are manufactured by IGT and placed in casinos where gambling is legal. The site also references our game sites http://www.cashkingcheckers.com and http://www.multistrikepoker.com The site has been up since September and is linked to from several pages on the web, many of which show up in searches for our game titles. During the 2 months that it has been operational, none of our pages have shown up in any kind of Google search that I have tried. That is, until last night when magically and happily they all appeared. I checked again this morning (11/29) and I can no longer get any of our pages to come up with any search (including a few obscure ones that were coming back before such as a search on cashkingcheckers.com). I would appreciate it if someone could explain why our site is apparently being filtered from Google search results. Our games are in wide circulation and are of interest to a measurable part of your client base. In addition to information on the games our site offers fully operational demonstration versions (using Shockwave) to allow people to play and understand these games. These are refined well developed programs that are an asset to the web. We also think it would be useful for both our company and Google clients if we could be listed in your directory (Games > Gambling > Slots). I have submitted our site with no results. Thank you for your help in this matter. Larry DeMar President Leading Edge Design 847-215-7766 [email protected]

• Answer:

  Hello Larry, [ A brief note: Google Answers is not responsible for the maintenance of the Google Index - Google Answers Researchers can, however, help you get information about how the Google Index works, how to submit your site or get listed in other ways, and how to add to your site to help improve your chances of getting listed. ] If you weren't showing up in the search results before yesterday, showed up yesterday, but you aren't listed today, the probability is high that you're a "victim" of the "Google Dance". The "Google Dance" is an affectionate term given to the process of updating the Google Index every four weeks or so. According to Webmasterworld, the last Dance was completed on October 31st: Google Update History http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2657.htm ...which means that the index is in the middle of a Dance right now. During the Google Dance, the index is shuffled and "shaken out" - pages may appear and disappear from the index as new pages are found and ranked. If you appeared, that's good news! The Googlebot found you and you're likely about to be listed! Only "likely", though. Getting listed is not guaranteed: "We add thousands of new sites to our index each time we crawl the Web, but if you like, you may submit your URL as well. Submission is not necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index. Given the large number of sites submitting URLs, it's likely your pages will be found in an automatic crawl before they make it into our index through the URL submission form. We DO NOT add all submitted URLs to our index, and cannot predict when or if they will appear." Submitting Your Site ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#A2 I had a look at the source of your page, and didn't find anything objectionable that would flag you for manual removal - you don't employ "cloaking" methods, and the page is free of extraneous comments and "keyword stuffing". What your site is missing, it seems, is links back and mentions on other pages. A quick search to find pages containing the words "www.ledgaming.com" turned up no mentions of your page on any other page in the index: Google Search ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&sa=G&q=%22%2Bwww.ledgaming.%2Bcom%22 I checked the other two pages you've noted above, and see that while you do link back to http://www.ledgaming.com from them, neither of them comes up in the index either. This is the root cause of your problem - no one else knows about you (or rather, no one else is *talking* about you!), so you have no Page Rank. Page what? Page Rank is the method which determines which pages will be listed in the Google index, and in what order. Pages with no Page Rank generally don't appear in the index. Google explains: "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query." Page Rank Explained ://www.google.com/technology/index.html So, how to fix this and get listed? First, add more descriptive content to your site(s). They're not bad pages at all - they're simple and clean, but perhaps a little too simple to accurately determine Page Rank. This portion: Games http://www.ledgaming.com/games.htm ...is a good example of descriptive content. Consider moving this to your main page, and describing the games in a little bit more detail (for instance, mention in Multi-Strike Poker and Othello's descriptions that they were nominated for the Most Innovative Product of 2003, instead of simply pointing at someone else's site). Consider also featuring press releases (full text!) on your other pages which discuss the products you're offering. Next, you need to get linked from other sites similar or related to yours. The best way to boost your chances of getting listed in the Google index is to make sure you're well linked from other pages with high Page Rank: "Google finds sites through a process known as "crawling" the web. This involves robot software that follows hyperlinks from site to site. Google currently looks at more than 3 billion URL's during the crawl. The process may take several weeks to complete. When a URL is submitted to Google, we look for it in our next crawl. If you've already submitted your URL, your site could easily appear in our new index, which will go up when the current crawl is completed. However, if no other site links to yours, it may be difficult for our crawler to find you. Conversely, if many sites link to your page, there is a good chance we will find you without your submitting your URL." [...] "If we have not picked up your site and it has been several months, then it is likely that our spiders are not able to find your site. If you increase the links pointing to the page, Google will likely find your site in the future." Getting Listed ://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html#B1 How do you get linked? Do a search on the same terms you expect to find your site listed under, then contact the top ten or twenty webmasters and ask if they would be interested in exchanging links with you. Everybody loves free publicity, and it's the rare webmaster who refuse a link exchange. How else can you get linked? Submit your site to the directories maintained by Google's partners on the Web, Netscape and Yahoo. Once you've been listed in either or both of these directories, Google usually indexes you in six to eight weeks: Netscape's Open Directory - DMOZ http://www.dmoz.org Yahoo! http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/ If you've done all of this and you're still not showing up in the next eight weeks or so, you might consider dropping a note to [email protected] to find out if there are any other factors keeping you out. For more information about getting (and staying) listed, Google offers several resources for webmasters: Google Information for Webmasters ://www.google.com/webmasters/ Google Webmasters' FAQ ://www.google.com/webmasters/faq.html User Support Forum http://groups.google.com/groups?q=google.public.support.general Additionally, to keep up with the latest Google Dance across all of Google's servers, try the Google Dance Machine, which tracks how the index looks on each of Google's servers worldwide: Google Dance Machine http://google-dance.miniunternehmen.de/ For a terrific explanation of the Google Dance, Page Rank, and how they affect listings, James Kendall at SEO today offers an explanation: It's All About Google - SEO Today, February 26, 2002 http://www.seotoday.com/browse.php/category/articles/id/173/index.php Good luck with your future listings! If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification. I'll be glad to help. --Missy Search terms: none. Google Help Pages are bookmarked and used frequently.