Getting page cached

[azguy]

I am reworking some content that is deep in my site. What is the best way for google to find it? Some of the pages were cached about 3 weeks ago, but I don't want to wait too long to get them to see the new content (and links).

[MarcLevy]

If your homepage is crawled regularly link to them from your homepage for a period of time. Alternatively, using social signals has worked a charm for me recently -  tweet about them, share on Facebook etc, get other people to share.

[JoeAmadon]

Go into webmaster tools > Diagnostics> Fetch as Googlebot. Enter the URL for the page you want crawled.

[azguy]

Stupid question Joe, but is that safe to do? I just submitted 3 URL's successfully, and says I have 47 left. Is 50 a monthly number allotment? So if it was fetched successfully, does that mean google will be caching page soon?

This is pretty cool if it really works.

Thanks,

Mike

[MarcLevy]

If this works, I have also learnt something new today. I always thought this just gave webmasters a chance to look at pages in the way Google would see them. Are you sure this actually sends the real Googlebot to crawl and cache a page?

I didn't see it mentioned here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=158587

Or have you found that it just speeds up the process? i.e. Google have been given some form of indication of where to visit? Definitely interesting!

[JoeAmadon]

I've heard from others that this can be very effective and I've seen good results getting pages cached quickly (a couple of days) after using it. I've used this very sparingly, so I don't know the period for the allotment. I also used this when it was in the Google Labs. They may have made a few changes when they brought it out of the lab.

[JoeAmadon]

I haven't seen any documentation by Google supporting this. In my experience I have seen it be successful. However, I haven't run any significant tests to back it up. It has just worked for me, so hoping it works for others. However, Fetch as Googlebot was still in the labs when I saw this working, so I'm not sure if this has changed.

[azguy]

OKay, thanks again!

[MarcLevy]

Cool, will give it a try!