A lot of people wonder why Google hasn't found their new website, so they hire a webmaster who charges a ton of money for something that can be done in 10 minutes by a novice. Read on if you are one such person. It's one of those things that sounds hard but turns out to be easy when you have the inside scoop.  This article shows you how to determine whether you're in Google's index, and if you're not, how to do it in less than 24 hours without spending a cent. One of these tips will surprise you, even if you're an advanced user.

Getting indexed by Google is a service some webmasters charge alarming sums of money for. Maybe you'll be the one charging alarming sums after you read this!

How to tell if Google has indexed your site

The first thing to do is to see if Google has indeed indexed your site. They have a special search option for this. It's called the site operator (whip that term out in casual conversation to impress your friends with your newfound technical chops). Just put site: in front of the name of the site when you're searching, like this:site:example.com Obviously you'd replace example.com with the name of your site.

Get your site indexed fast

Getting your site indexed as quickly is simple, but surprisingly few people know how to get it done. The key is to get a popular site to mention yours--but how?

Remember search engines are nothing more than popularity contest judges. They index popular sites first because, well, they're popular, so more people will get the benefit of the index. If a popular site mentions another site, the search engine will say "hmmm" to itself and add the newly mentioned site to its database.

Free classifieds

The obvious question: how do you get a popular site to mention your unknown one? By posting it yourself on sites like Craigslist, Digg, or USFreeAds.  The trick, of course, is to not to be tricking anyone. Be sincere.

For example, if you create a site for a local mechanic, there's nothing wrong with mentioning it on Craigslist in the automotive services section. I have even posted an ad to the NYC Craigslist site simply saying that I had built a new site and I wanted people to see it even though I don't live in that area. It wasn't flagged. Google found the site within 4 hours.

USFreeAds, on the other hand, will let just about any kind of ad go because, well, it's a classifieds site! As always, however, be respectful of the community.

Social bookmarking

Digg won't flag you if you use the same approach. Nothing wrong with bookmarking it as a new site and mentioning that you created it and you're proud of it.

Here's out of the box thinking: Wikipedia!

You can even consider contributing to Wikipedia, but only if your site is relevant to the article in question. If you've written a solid article on search engine optimization for your new site, for example, you can probably add it to the External Links or Notes and References Wikipedia article for SEO.

The first three are plenty!

Use all these services and more (StumbleUpon, Reddit, and similar sites) if you wish, but the first three mentioned are plenty. You'll find Google pays very close attention to them and will add you to its database in well under 24 hours. Give it a try, and treat yourself to a smug grin next time you hear someone charging an outlandish fee to get Google to index your site.