Help Google Find and Index Your Website Pages Faster

Give Google a helping hand.

For each new website launched, one of the important steps I take care of is submitting the new sitemap to Google Search Console (GSC).

This simple step helps Google find your content quicker vs. waiting on Google to mosey around the internet and finally find it. Submitting your sitemap to GSC fast-tracks the process. 🚀

Ok, so how?

• First, you must have created your XML sitemap (and that pages, posts, or other important items are in order). A good SEO plugin such as SEOPress, Rank Math, or Yoast can create a sitemap for you.
• Grab your XML sitemap link from your SEO plugin, then go to your Google Search Console account to submit.

Finding, crawling, and indexing.

Submitting the sitemap to Google and your pages being indexed are two different things. My brain can’t fathom the amount of web pages on the internet or the amount of bots Google has crawling. It’s massive, which is why submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is your Disney FastPass that helps finding and crawling your site a priority.

Once Google acknowledges your sitemap, your Google Search Console dashboard may say pages are “Discovered”. That’s a start! Then comes:

• Crawling = where bots read and check things out, look at javascript, URLs, how they connect, where they go, learn what you’re about and more.
• Indexing = this means your content can now show up in search results.

Not all crawled/found pages are indexed. When a page is “Crawled” or “Discovered”, but not currently indexed, it means either that Google found it and made a note to go back later to index or learn more. (Note: You can find your “Crawled – currently not indexed” URLs under the Pages tab under Indexing in Google Search Console.)

If all goes well, and Google doesn’t have a issue with anything, you can usually expect the whole process to take a few weeks to a few months. Yep, in some cases it can be 3 to 6 months.

Here’s a short video from Google that explains crawling.

The Veruca Salt “But I want it now!” tip:

If you have priority pages, or if you make big changes on a page and want Google to know about it (recrawl) sooner rather than later, you can “Request Indexing” to put those pages to the front of the line (in regards to your site’s URLs). It’s not a 100% guarantee (per Google), but it’s a tool we can use to try. Because, why not?

Knowing how to optimize your website for SEO and site visitors + taking care of important off-site tasks (like submitting your sitemap) are the steps included in every Next Level website that can help give you a boost over your competition.

Curious about how it all works? Book a chat to learn more.