It occurred to me a while back that my websites were not searchable in Google, Ask.com, Yahoo!, Duckduckgo, or anything else. Why? Didn’t people search for seaweed soup or ESL classes? Weren’t people interested? I was hurt! Not really, but it was weird nonetheless. Back in the day, when static HTML pages ruled and students logged in, my website was searched for many times.
But that was then, and this is now. Now, apparently, website owners have to actually install a Google Console identifier file onto their website’s main directory. Is this about having the owner’s permission to be searched? Well excuuuuuse me! I thought it was the World Wide Web. I thought everything out there should be searched.
Or could it be that Google just doesn’t want to? Are there too many sites out there now? Are they too busy now, and we have to ask them to include us? Well excuuuuuse me! I thought that was Google’s job in the world – to search for websites with seaweed soup recipes and report back with hits. But mine didn’t show up. I searched many places for “allansplace” and got some guy in South Africa. What makes him so special? Who the heck knows. Did he pay Google to include him?
It became apparent that times had changed. I still don’t know why we have to actually tell Google to search on our webs – maybe something about the new privacy regulations in Europe – but whatever the reason is, I now have a little piece of Google on my website. It’s called Google Console. Does this mean my site is being tracked? I can apparently know where people are viewing my websites from. Yay. My server used to do that. Does that go against the anti-tracking meme so common today? Is there any other way of being included in Google searches without this?
I’ll get back to you … someday. Do a search for it.