How long did it take you to show up on Google?

[Ninja]

So how long did it take you to show up on Google for your targeted keywords after putting your 'finished' site up.

When I say finished i mean your first instance of tagging everything and putting in all the content - not your under construction page, and not solely your homepage, but the other pages in your site.

For me my main site has been registered for 10 months, but did not get around to finishing it until the 9th month. Upon finishing it am now on first page for some juicy keywords, took about a month after completion. So im wondering how long it would have taken if id finished it up earlier and if domain registration lifespan is a factor.

The newest site is an 'add on' and is less than about a month old and finished around 10 days ago, but isn't showing up on google search yet. Is starting to index as indicated by "site:www.mysite.com"...But from past experience know that showing up on GWT and actually showing up on google search are two different things. Sites do not yet register as 'indexed' on GWT.

So to make things clear for readers of this posting please fill in the blanks below please:

1) When did you register your URL

2) When did you start showing up on Google searches by using keywords for search (not using site:www.mysite.com)

3) Primary domain or add on domain

4) When was sitemap submitted?

thanks !

[Noticed]

I'm not going to answer the questions as I don't want my sites listed here quit yet, however i'm more than happy to help you and give you advice.

SEO is something that no one understands 100% how it works, most people have good idea's but there's no specific "time frame" on when your site will be indexed. Site's being indexed can take anywhere up too 3 months, but your webpage might not ever be indexed it all just depends on your competition and how unique your content is (there are more factors but these are the main two).

If you posted your URL I would be able to help you out a little more!

[Guy Scharf]

I have been very successful with one domain and not at all with another in getting high ranking in Google. In the case of the successful domain, the relevant search phrases were both unique and organically included in the page text. If search for with the name of the city (which would be most likely), there is essentially no similar sites so we end up at the top. I set that domain up almost two years ago. I think I was finding it in Google searches within a day or two of opening the site to robots. I did submit a sitemap through Google webmaster tools. At least three-quarters of our accesses come via search engines and perhaps one-quarter by direct links.

Using the same strategies, I've not been so successful with another site, probably because there are a lot of competing sites with similar descriptions (a rental cottage in a tourist destination). While I have some search terms that will force the site to pop up, they're not ones that the target market is likely to use, so they serve no useful purpose. For the longest time (months), I couldn't get the site to show up in a Google search based on likely searches at all. Direct results in Google searches have improved only a little bit in three months. For this site, the key to traffic (and resulting rentals) that worked was being listed in a local vacation rental referral listing.

In both cases, the site was blocked with robots.txt while it was being built and only released to search engines when it was done, or nearly done. Both sites are WordPress sites (the first has a blog, the second does not).

You might be interested in http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf