How Does Post Frequency Effect Google Indexing?
If you are a freak about getting your quality content indexed in Google, you may notice from time to time that your content sometimes gets indexed very quickly and then other times it doesn’t seem to ever get indexed at all.
For a few months, I have been studying the patterns of the Googlebot. Now, I will be the first to admit, I don’t understand the Googlebot. All I can do is observe what it does on my blog and how I react upon its patterns.
I am not going to subject readers to a long and drawn out article about this. I want to keep things very short and sweet. So, making a long story short, the rate and speed in which you get new content indexed on your blog will depend on how often you post to your blog.
From what I can see, the Googlebot learns from your publishing behaviors. The Googlebot quickly learns your patterns in posting and discovers how often you post and then makes a calculation which will determine how often it will come back to your blog to index new content.
Again, this is in no way proven, so don’t hold this information as law. But this blog produces a fairly high amount of volume. At times 10 posts per day. The Googlebot will visit this blog and index new content within minutes.
From time to time, I sometimes go a few days without writing new content to the blog. The result is the same every time. When I go a few days without writing on the blog, it takes Googlebot a few days to come back to the blog.
At times, it actually makes me nervous by thinking that it won’t ever come back. It does though and then after a few more days, things are back on track.
Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you that if you value having your content indexed in Google, write good quality content and be consistent with how you publish it. If you can only do one post per day consistently, then do just that. If there are days when you can do two posts per day, perhaps make that second post a scheduled post and save it for the next day.
If you can successfully step up your volume and write two posts per day, then go for it! I would then stagger your two posts 12 hours from each other. That way you have one new post going live every 12 hours. I used to think that being random was good, but the more I study this, I actually think its better to be consistent instead.
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February 9th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Interesting theory Garry, I’m sure that it is correct to a degree, however what I have noticed with my main blog http://www.zath.co.uk is that I tend to post new content every 1-5 days (I need to be more consistent on this I know!), but whenever I check, the new post has always been indexed within an hour.
My domain is fairly old now, probably about 5 years, so I don’t know is that is factored into the equation, but luckily for me Google seem to index me quickly despite not posting every day.
That said, I think I’m still suffering the wrath of Google for breaking my permalinks structure in December - currently I swear that my domain has a sandbox effect despite my PR3 = no Google traffic
I’m hoping that I can wait this out and Google will start liking me again sometime soon! *fingers crossed*
February 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Zath,
I just checked your two most recent posts. One was done on Feb. 5th and the other on Feb. 3rd. Today is Feb. 9th and neither have been indexed in Google.
Post From Feb 5th and Post from Feb. 3rd. So, it does not appear that your site is getting indexed within the hour of new content being published. Posting more frequently or consistently will help with this.
You are right about one thing, the age of a domain name can play a factorization into this equation. But wrong about another in regards to changing your permalink structure. If you change your permalink structure, it shouldn’t have any effect on getting your new stuff indexed. However, it will take time for web crawlers to deep crawl your entire site and re-index your old stuff.
As far as search engine traffic goes, you are right… from what I can tell it wouldn’t appear like you are getting much just from my quick scan. You should focus on titling your posts using phrases that are less competitive in the search engines. I feel that it is better to rank #1 for a phrase with little to no competition rather than rank #100 for a highly competitive word.
Overall I think you are doing fine. Carefully title your posts using phrases that would be less competitive and logical search terms and just be more consistent with your posting and in due time things should be much better for you.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Woah, I take that back, I WAS getting indexed within an hour the last time I checked….although my posting has been a little erratic just recently due to illness and computer deadness - this has obviously had it’s effects!
Posting regularly and frequently is the order of the day I think!
May 14th, 2008 at 8:21 am
What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
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