Google To Index Websites In Real Time
By Anna Johnson on March 4th, 2010Instead of waiting for Google to crawl your website before it updates its search results (and your Google rankings), you may soon have new website content instantly indexed by Google the moment you publish it.
According to Google senior product manager Dylan Casey, Google plans to invite website owners to participate in a new program in which Google will, essentially, be notified each time the website owner updates their content.
Instead of the current system in which Google intermittently crawls websites to see whether there’s any new content (before it updates its search results pages or SERPs), the new system will likely involve Google ‘subscribing’ to your website so that it’s updated each time you change, or add to, content on your site. In turn, Google will update its SERPs.
This is good news for website owners, search engine users and Google. Website owners will be able to get their new content indexed automatically, search engine users will be able to find the latest search results, and Google will benefit from being a more responsive, up-to-date and informative search engine.
There is, however, a catch for those wanting to game Google’s system. In fact, real time indexing by Google is likely to put ‘black hat’ search engine optimizers (SEOs) at a distinct disadvantage. This is because if you want your site indexed in real-time, you’ll undoubtedly need to join Google’s Webmaster Tools program and comply with the terms of that program. If Google discovers you’ve submitted a site that uses black hat SEO tactics, they’ll eject you as fast as you can say ‘don’t mess with Google’.
Internet marketers who use ‘grey hat’ SEO techniques may also find themselves at a disadvantage if they don’t have Google compliant websites to register with Webmaster Tools.
The vast majority of website owners, however, have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a Google real time indexing program. Create a useful site for real people, regularly update and add to your content, and Google real time indexing will help you improve your Google search rankings. In particular, all else being equal, it will help you outrank competitors who try to game the system.
