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[/frame]We often focus on Google, Bing and Yahoo and forget about some of the other great search engines out there – like Ask.com – the Q&A search engine. However while the ‘Big 3’ have their own set of webmaster tools which allow you to easily submit your website and manage it – Ask.com doesn’t have anything of the sort – making the big question: How do I register my site/URL with Ask so that it will be indexed?
Ask.com supports the open-format Sitemaps protocol – making your first step creating an XML sitemap for your website (really you should have one already anyway). Once this is done there are 2 ways to tell the Ask.com bot about your sitemap:
- Add the sitemap auto-discovery directive to robots.txt. This should look like this:
- SITEMAP: http://rapidpurple.com/sitemap.xml
- Submit your sitemap through the ping URL: http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//rapidpurple.com/sitemap.xml
In both options just make sure to replace our sitemap link with your own. Do note that if you don’t see your pages indexed in the Ask.com search results, don’t be alarmed. It takes some time for Ask.com to analyze the results of a crawl and then process the results for inclusion into the database. Ask.com does not necessarily include every site it has crawled in its index.
I am always looking for good SEO tips. This is a good one and will be taking your advice. Getting a website indexed to me is just as important as having one in the first place.
i completely agree. if you’re going to go through the work of creating and maintaining a website, good SEO technique should be a big priority for you – otherwise how will your website ever get seen by more than your local group of friends or customers.
exactly – you wouldn’t want to just give up half way.
My first time on this site and I have really enjoyed all the super info that is here.
perfect little guide, good write up man!
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It’s true! People rarely ever focus on Ask.com (or Ask Jeeves). I still use them to search! Anyway thanks for the tips!
They really rarely think of it but fact is Ask.com is still an extremely popular engine. In fact according to this list: http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/navigatingthenet/tp/top_10_search_engines_for_beginners.htm Ask.com is one of the top most relevant engines out there today.
Thanks for posting the info! You guys are right though – everyone usually focuses in on Google and Bing and dont worry about the other guys out there.
Hey good idea! I never think about using Ask.com to search but I’m sure lots of people do.
Ask does not necessarily include every site it has crawled in its index? Oh well, it doesn’t seem too hard to do this. I think it’s worth a shot.
Hey this is my first time on this site as well. I think there is not only a great deal of information, but I love the look of it. Nice work!
Perfect. The more places you are listed the better 🙂 Love the site. Thanks for these helpful tips!
Yeah I agree on the wait times. Unfortunately is is a waiting game with Ask. If the main url is in that’s a start, they will crawl, but not on an acceptable timetable on the planet earth – they’re crawl index rate is POOR! Nice post Rapid Purple!
Can it possibly be worse than Bings crawl rate?
Based on how long it has taken for some of my own sites to get listed – I think Ask.com might be on-par with Bing as far as crawl rates go.
Ok, so crawl rates by Ask and Bing are ALOT slower than Google and Yahoo – but you’ll get there in time.