How Long Will It Take for Google to Find My Squidoo Lens?
After the response I had on my last post about how to get Google to index your Squidoo lens, it appears I need to keep going with this discussion. Since rambling is my specialty, let’s ramble some more about Google and getting that lens into the Google index…. and how to totally screw it up.
Update on My Lens/Google Index Test
- I published two new lenses about 11 hours ago.
- I did NOTHING to promote the lenses other than blog about them here on PotPieGirl.com
Within 30 minutes, both Google Blog Search and the Google Web Index had the above mentioned post indexed (approx 10 hours ago)
After that blog post was indexed, I did the following:
- Used Mixx to bookmark the blog post
- Used Digg to Digg the blog post
- I added a link for each new lens within the blogroll of a PR3 niche blog I have
- I pinged each lens thru the dashboard options within SquidUtils.com
As you can see, I still have done NOTHING directly to the two new Squidoo lenses. I haven’t Dugg them or lensrolled them, or any of that. The two new lenses have been pinged, they have been “talked about” on an off-site blog (here), and they have been linked to from another PR3 blog.
It’s been about 12 hours since these two lenses were published, and no, they are still not in the Google index. Yes, I am impatient – Yes, I keep checking – Yes, I am weird that way.
I will report back on this as any changes are made or as things progress.
A Guaranteed Way For Google to NOT Index YOUR Lens
Yup, it’s time we talk about this. Promoting your new lens on the Squidoo site is a surefire way to screw things up. This applies to a new lens that is not already indexed by Google. By saying ‘promoting a new lens on the Squidoo site” I am referring to leaving anchor text in guestbooks and lensrolling your new lens to other lenses. Joining groups appears to be fine.
Ok, here comes the question….
Why Shouldn’t I Promote an Un-Indexed Lens on the Squidoo Site?
Quick answer – Because the lenses you drop anchor text/HTML links on will rank for your targeted keywords before YOUR lens does.
Long answer (and proof)
One of my more popular lenses that folks like to leave links to their lens on is my Squidoo Lens Exposure lens. I took a scroll through the comments on that lens and found a comment that was left on April 19th. Considering today is May 8th, plenty enough time has passed to allow the visitors lens to get indexed by Google… agreed?
I Googled the url of the lens that was left via anchor text in a comment on my guest book. The lens is NOT indexed.
Next, I copied the exact anchor text the commenter left on my guestbook and put those words, in quotes, into Google to search. I chose those anchor text words because, theoretically, those are the keywords that lensmaster is targeting and wants to rank for with his/her lens. Make sense?
Next, I put that exact anchor text into Google and searched.
Results:
- 7 Returned Web Pages
- 6 of which were “filtered”
- 0 Were the lens in question (which we already know isn’t even in the Google index)
- 1 of the web pages returned for this query was my Lens Exposure lens
- All 7 results were Squidoo lenses where the lensmaster of the lens in question had left anchor text comments in the guest book.
Look:
Pretty interesting, huh? For the lensmaster this happens to, this is damn annoying!
Moral of the Story:
Do Not Go Dropping Links to Your Lens All Over the Squidoo Site
UNTIL AFTER YOUR LENS IS INDEXED.
I can see both of your Squidoo lenses indexed on Google, by searching for site: followed by the lens URL (no space, not http://). You can use info: too. Google claims to have indexed them 10-13 hours ago (it’s about 19:00 GMT at the moment).
The lens ‘low-cost-hosting-services’ even appears in the #1 spot if you search for the full title (no quotes).
Looks like you proved your original point – link to your lens from a great blog, and it’ll get indexed fast. That’s good to know!
{ From PotPieGirl }
Fluffanutta – is that UK Google? I’ve searched every way I can think of (including closing my eyes, standing on my head, and getting my cat to Google it) and I can’t get those two lenses to show for love nor money.
Good to know SOMEONE sees it, tho! Thanks for checking!!
So I should approve all those comments with spammy links back to their own lenses>;) At least temporarily…
Ah, perhaps I spoke too soon. I looked again, and it’s no-where to be found; neither US or UK servers. Google is a strange beast.
Meanwhile, I’ve just created a lens of my own, so I’m going to try the publish-and-ping technique (nothing else) to see if that works…
I hope this doesn’t sound strange but what I’ve begun to do when checking my stats at places like squidoo and google is to actually log out of my Gmail account.
I came to this conclusion two weeks ago after noticing a few things going on with Google after I continued to check my rankings as you’ve mentioned you’ve done throughout the day in this post.
There’s also another big time marketer Marlon Sanders who mentioned this fact last week as well in his newsletter with respect to seeing something out of sorts when he constantly checked his stats while logged into Google. He too did everything possible to get several of his blogs indexed for a particular product without success.
My husband who is a Network Security expert does seem to believe Google’s toolbar gives them far more access to our computers than we’re even aware.
For example, I was logged in at the time preparing an email to send to my child’s school about her medical condition from my Microsoft email client not Gmail. I actually sent the email and immediately went to do some further research in Google.
When I began to type, “what’s considered ” before I could finish my query, Google search box showed only one query which was exactly about what I’d written about in my Microsoft email client.
This totally freaked me out because the term “what’s considered” is such a generic term but for their search box to come up with the exact health subject matter mentioned in my offline email client was just too strange.
Moral to this story, try your best to remember to log out when doing queries related to your online businesses so you won’t possibly be penalized in some way by their search engine. Next to God, they appear to be all knowing nowadays.
Sunshine
Well, I think I understand now.
I must admit that there are some lens that I promote via guestbook, and the lens that get lots of exposure, I don’t promote it via guestbook, only digg. It’s a huge knowledge for squidoo newbie like me 🙂
Vewwy, vewwy intwesting … . I know I had a problem with a couple of mine and when you searched for them, you would often find not the lens, but all the places it had been linked from or lensrolled. Have you noticed a similar issue with lensrolling the lens? It just fascinates me to no end how many ways there are to accidentally goof up in the SEO game. 🙂
thank you for the tip, I think I know by now why I can’t find some of my lenses. Did any one see them anywhere?
Blogging is the best way to get Google to find and crawl your Squidoo lens.
Get Squidoo Lens Indexeds last blog post..Ovarian Cysts – Foods You Better Not Eat
This is a great post! I had no idea I was supposed to wait w/advertising on Squidoo until my new lens gets indexed on Google. I’m looking forward to read more of your posts and learn the secrets of Squidooing for better results.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! 🙂
I just made my first lens, My wordpress blog posts get indexed in a couple of minutes.
I’m not sure if squidoo is really worth the effort.
Hi PotPieGirl,
Great lens! 🙂
Ok, I have a question. I recently installed a little tool to firefox that checks the PR of the ‘live’ page you are visiting. Apparently my Squidoo lens has a PR of 4?? Is that actually possible?
Also, I’ve been following your methods for about a week now, and no results, but my lenses are really nice (I think). Is it time to start over again? I’ve had about 60 visits, but mostly referred. Or do I just need to push harder?
Dave
Oh,
And how are you getting aweber integrated with Squidoo? Thats a nice trick for building your lists…..
Dave
Forget the aweber thing, thats me being really dumb! lol! It’s very early in the morning and I’m still asleep, nice site though! 🙂
This was blog was a really good find for me as thru your links (SquidUtils) I could see on their lens health checker that I had missed out a few critical things! Oh the joys of being new to SEO and Squidoo! Many thanks!
Hi Jennifer,
I like your search facility, it makes my researching a lot easier. Dropping your lens into a guest book without it being indexed? You certainly are a cool helping dude!!
Cheers,
Graham