How To Get Indexed Again After Removal of Robot.txt

Question

While building a Webiste, i created a robot.txt on the server, to prevent the yet unfinished application from getting into Google's Index...

Now that i am done with the site, i removed the robot.txt and i expected that my site would show up on Google, since the robot.txt is gone!

But this is not happening! I have removed the robot.txt now for about 3 to 4 weeks, and yet the site is still not showing up :(

Is there something that one needs to do after the removal of robot.txt to get into the indexes of search engines again? Or isn't this suppose to happen naturally?

Or is this my case that of not being patient enough?

Answer 1

Create a sitemap file and submit it to google, bing, and others. For google you can use their webmaster tools for this.

Answer 2

I would just setup a new default robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: 

Also sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and setup sitemap files. This might help Google to recognize things have changed.

Answer 3

You can add your site for crawling in here.

Answer 4

As the first step step get site verified in Webmaster Tools. So you can see google crawler visits and reasons for denies.

Read more @ http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=671635798b0e75ba&hl=en

Answer 5

For an optimal position in the Google search results you should definitely check this document:

Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide