How does Google discover and index new websites?
How does Google discover and index new websites? Google has a Googlebot, this bot crawls the internet looking for new websites and updated pages on existing websites. These bots collect huge amounts of data from billions of pages on the web. Each page is scanned for new information and links to new pages.
Let’s find out how Google finds new websites and new content.
- Will Google find my site?
- How do I submit my site to Google?
- Submit a new URL to Google
- Request indexing
- Request Google index your site once
- How do I check if my website has been indexed?
- How to index your WordPress website in Google search console video tutorial
- Conclusion
- Frequently asked questions
Will Google find my site?
Absolutely. Google never stops looking for new websites. Google wants to find new information to improve its search results.
To help Google find your site quicker, you can submit your site to Google via the Google search console. Each time I publish or update a post on my website, I use my search console to request Google re-index my site.
How do I submit my site to Google?
The best and easiest way to submit your site to Google is through Google Search Console. If you have not signed up for Google search console yet, then I advise you to do that soon.
The overview page looks like this.
Submit a new URL to Google
When you want to submit a new page, post or any URL to Google. You copy the URL and paste it into the ‘inspect any URL’ box at the top of the overview page. I will show you how I do this with one of my websites.
I have just finished a post and want Google to index this post.
After publishing the post, I view the post in a browser. From the browser, I copy the URL.
You can see from this image that I have highlighted the URL in the address bar.
Next, I open a new window and open my Google search console overview.
Now I paste the highlighted URL into the ‘inspect any URL’ grey box at the top of this screen.
Like this.
After you have pasted the URL into the box, press enter.
Then you get this popup.
After a few seconds, the screen will go to this.
The green tick is to tell you that Google has indexed this URL already. If Google has not indexed your URL, it will be grey.
On the large box with the green tick, you will see a question on the bottom right-hand side.
Google is asking you if your page has changed. If you have not changed your URL then you do not need to do anything.
The green tick is Google telling you that it knows about this URL already.
Request indexing
If you have changed the content on a post or if you want to tell Google about a brand new URL then you need to click on the ‘REQUEST INDEXING’ link.
Once you click on the request indexing link you get this popup.
Google will run a quick live test to make sure this URL can be indexed.
Once the test is complete you see the following popup.
Google lets you know that it has accepted your request to index this webpage. Google also explains that doing
Request once
You only need to make the request once. Google will add your URL to its list of URLs it needs to crawl.
To get rid of this popup click on ‘GOT IT’. That is what you do to get your website or URLs indexed.
How do I check if my website has been indexed?
If you have a brand new website and are eager to know if your site has been indexed by Google. This is how you do a check.
First, you open a new tab and then type ‘site:(site URL)’ into the Google search engine.
Here is an example. You replace (site URL) with the URL you want to check.
The search results confirm this page has been indexed by Google.
If it had not been indexed then I would get a page like this.
If Google displays there are no search results to match the query. This tells you that Google has not indexed the URL yet.
If you are sure you have entered the URL into Google correctly, then wait another day before checking again. Most of the time when I index a new page it is indexed within the hour.
I always make sure that I get into the routine of requesting indexing by Google every time I write a new post or when I update an old one.
How to index your WordPress website in Google search console video tutorial
Conclusion
Google makes it very easy to get your website pages and posts indexed. Use Google search console, if you haven’t signed up for an account yet, put that on your to-do list.
Every time that I complete a new post or update an old one. The first thing I do is submit my URL to Google via my search console dashboard. It speeds up the indexing process.
In addition to submitting URLs, you should submit a sitemap to Google and Bing. If you don’t have a sitemap yet, check out my ‘how to create a sitemap‘ blog post.
For more video tutorials to help you build your WordPress website, check out and subscribe to my new YouTube channel.
Frequently asked questions
If you use the Google search console to make a request to have Google index your site. Then your website should be indexed very soon. In my experience, most of my posts indexed within seconds. Only a few took longer than a day.
Sign up for Google search console and then submit your website using the instructions I give in the post above. Once you submit your website you will be indexed in no time.
Using Google search console is free. You use this to get your website indexed. After Google has indexed your site it will hold your website information on file until it needs it to deliver for a search request. If your website has the best answer to a search request then Google will show your website in the search results. If you have a fantastic headline, then you should get a free click from Google to your website.
If your website is not showing in Google then that could mean that Google has not indexed your website yet. Or, your website is not ranking yet for keywords. With new websites, you must be patient. If you have not signed up for Google search console yet. Then do that now. After you have set that up, follow the steps I have given in this post and your website will be indexed in no time. If you have submitted your website to Google and want to check if it has been indexed or not. Then you can check very easily by typing ‘site:www.yourwebsitename.com’ into Google search. I have an example of how to do this in my post above. The search results will show all pages indexed by Google for that website.
If you have updated an old post to improve SEO. Changes take at least 30 days before you see results on Google.
Comments
What do you do to get your website indexed?
How long does it take for you to see your website in Google?
Do you use Google search console or do you wait for Google?
I look forward to reading comments
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