Your website project has been completed.
Everyone is excited. It’s time to go live.
However there’s a few things you need to know. When we put your website live the internet has some catching up to do and that can take a few hours or days to happen.
Here’s what to do, what not to do and why.
What NOT to do
- Promote it on social media
- Send out a big mailing list with links to it
- Tell your clients / friends / family
- Start actively marketing your website
- Start searching in Google for your website
What to do
- Wait at least 72 hours
- Even better, wait a week. See why we recommend waiting a week to announce your new website.
So what are you waiting for?
DNS Propagation
What is it?
DNS propagation is the time is takes for changes to your domain name to be updated across the internet worldwide. In most cases the changes happen in a few hours, but we always advise sticking to the rule of thumb, 72 hours.
What effects does this have for people looking at your website?
- Your site may not load at all.
- If your project was to replace an existing site some people might see the old site and some may see the new site during propagation.
Don’t worry. While you might see some odd looking behaviour during that 72 hour period, it’s completely normal and to be expected.
Google (and other search engines)
You might expect your new site to appear in Google search results straight away — but that’s not usually the case.
For new websites, it can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks for Google to index your site. So if you search for it soon after launch, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t show up yet.
In rare cases, Google might not index the site at all on the first attempt, and it may need to be manually submitted again.
Even once your site is indexed, its position in the search results can fluctuate quite a bit at first. One week you might find it on page 1, the next on page 10. This is normal — the algorithm is working out where your site fits compared to others already in Google’s index. It usually settles over time.
If your site has been redesigned or replaced, you may also see temporary drops or changes in ranking. This is due to changes in content and structure, which Google needs to re-evaluate.
Ultimately, we have to let the algorithm do its job — and be patient.
and most importantly when it comes to Google rankings
Many people assume that once a website goes live and is listed on Google, it will quickly appear on page one and start generating enquiries. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Simply having a website isn’t enough, that’s just start — attracting visitors takes consistent marketing effort. That’s where services like SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or paid search come in, both of which we offer to help drive traffic to your site. There are many other ways of marketing the website yourself which we have listed here as the best marketing channels for small businesses.
