Google Submission Test, Part 1

I thought I’d turn my very first blog on my new site into my own little SEO test. The prevailing wisdom of the day among the SEO community is that Google’s add URL tool is pretty much the worst way to get your site listed in Google and that the best way is to get as many high quality links back to your site as you can as quickly as you can. I myself have talked this game for a while, but I’ve as yet had a chance to put the theory to the test (usually because some enterprising soul involved in the SEO process will turn to me and tell me they’ve saved me the hassle of submitting to Google by doing it for me).

So here’s my plan …

1.  I’ve had this domain gathering dust for a while. I’ve never submitted it to Google because there was never anything here worth seeing. Yesterday, I searched Google up & down for variations on my URL. All it came up with was reference to my whois registration and a guy with a similarly named site who can help me become a great public speaker (it’s got to be something about the teeth).
2. This morning I installed WordPress, mucked about with Arcsin’s lovely Dirtylicious theme, and wrote this entry. My next step is to grab a membership at Technorati and then notify a few of my nearest and dearest of my new blog. Perhaps I’ll even blog about my blog one or two places where I’ve been known to blog before. Then I think I’ll exchange links with the talented Stephen J. Edgar, the photographer who took all the shots of Toronto featured in the banner.
3. After I’ve released it to the metaverse, I’m going to Google this site daily and see just how long it takes for the URL to get indexed. I’m hoping it’s less than a week, hopefully only a couple of days.

I’m not exactly sure how long Google takes to add a URL using the add URL function. Google doesn’t seem to give an estimate (I suppose it’s best not to get people’s hopes up, just in case), but I’ve been told it’s anywhere from 10 days to 4-6 weeks. Hopefully I’ll get indexed quicker than that. I suppose this experiment would only be of true merit if I were to set up a mirror site that I did submit to Google and then sit back and time the two sites comparatively, but that just seems a bit over the top for me.

 Thanks for taking part in this experiment. Check back soon and I’ll tell you what I find.