Search Engine Indexing for WordPress.COM

Publishing your blog does not make it show-up in search engines. Major search engine companies such as Google use spiders or bots to scan and search your site.

It can take up to 4-6 weeks before your site begins to show-up. WordPress takes care of indexing your site with the search engines by Automattically notifying them of new content via your site’s XML map.
You can see your site’s XML map here:
www.YOURSITESNAME.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml

However, there are somethings you can do to help make it easier.

1. You can verify your site’s ownership with Google and Bing using webmaster tools. Note, you will need an account with each in order to use the tools.
   Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

Bing Webmaster Tools: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/

WordPress Webmaster directions: http://en.support.wordpress.com/webmaster-tools/

1. To view how well your blog is doing on Google and Bing:
   http://www.ismyblogworking.com

1. You can also check to see how your RSS feed is doing and make any appropriate changes. RSS stands for Really Simply Syndication. An RSS feed is a display of all your published content in one place. It makes is easier for other bloggers and visitors to see and read your content.
   WordPress.COM RSS feeds can be seen by going to:
   www.YOURSITESNAME.wordpress.com/rss

To validate your feed use: http://feedvalidator.org/

1. You can check how your HTML and CSS-stylesheets are doing by referring to the validators and make any appropriate changes.

HTML Validator:  http://validator.w3.org/

CSS-Validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

1. Check for broken-links. The more links you have that are appropriate and valid the more your site is likely to display in search results.

Link Checker: http://validator.w3.org/checklink

1. Make sure you adjust your site’s viability to allow search engines to index the site.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/
2. When writing posts include specific keywords people would be likely to search for.
3. Edit your post’s slug title to reflect what your post is about.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/new-post-screen/#post-title-and-permalink-url

4. Use tags to show-up in the WordPress Reader Display. The Reader Display allows bloggers to follow relevant blogs. Bloggers and users will use the reader display to type in tags to identify WordPress.COM sites with relevant information. In the reader display, the newest content shows-up first.  WordPress recommends to use anywhere between 5-15 tags or categories.

Reader Display Information: http://en.support.wordpress.com/reader/
Tag Information: http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/tags/
Tag System: http://en.support.wordpress.com/topics/

1. Publish often and write good content.

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p style=”text-align: left;”>                                    Search Engine Indexing Tips for WordPress.COM users
1. Making pages or posts sticky has a tendency to hurt search engine rankings and indexing.
Sticky Post Information: http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/post-visibility/#sticky-posts
2. Tags are not case sensitive.
3. Brand new blogs don’t get on the Tag pages of the WordPress Reader Display. It takes a few days.
4. If you use more than 15 tags and/or categories in a post, you will be classed as a tag spammer and removed from the tag system.
5. If your blog is for mature audiences it will not be included in the WordPress tag system.
6. Your blog may not show-up because it has been flagged for violating TOS.
WordPress Terms of Service (TOS): http://en.wordpress.com/tos/

See also: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/seo-on-wordpress-com/