The Benefits of Submitting your Website to Google
Once you set up an amazing website that contains some really valuable content, it is ready to bring your business to the online format.
But do you think, the world will be able to see your site as soon as you hit the publish button? The answer is no. It will take some time as Google crawls and index your content. This automatically keeps occurring over a certain period of days or weeks. However, as a site owner, you can accelerate this process and submit your site manually to Google. Before proceeding, you need to understand the process of website submission in Google.
Submitting Your Site to Google
For manual site submission, you can either submit an indexing request for a specific URL or add an updated sitemap to Google. Request for index through Fetch on Google. Both steps require you to complete the registration process with Google Search Console.
If You Have a Brand-New Website
If your website is being launched for the first time, it is important that you first verify your ownership with Google Search Console. On completion of the verification process, you can then land on the page that requires the submission of a xml sitemap. This is how your site is listed in Google. You will need to copy the sitemap url and paste it onto the place provided.
If You Have an Existing Website but Require to Add New Pages
As your domain has already been launched, submission of new pages for Google indexing becomes easier. However, the process remains the same, as here too, you need to verify your ownership with Google to re-crawl the site.
How To Check Whether or Not Your Site is on Google?
After submitting your website to Google for indexing, it’s essential to verify whether the process has been successful. To do this, follow these simple steps:
1. Perform a Direct Search: The easiest way to check if your site is on Google is to perform a direct search using your website’s URL or name in the Google search bar. If Google has indexed and crawled your site, it should automatically appear in the search results. This is a quick way to ensure that your site is discoverable by online users.
2. Use Quotation Marks: Another method is to use quotation marks when searching. Copy a line or paragraph from your website and place it within quotation marks in the search box on Google. If your site has been crawled and indexed, it will appear in the search results, usually with the exact text you entered in quotes.
3. Utilise the Site Operator Command: For a more specific check, you can use the site operator command. Simply type “site:www.yourwebsite.com” in the Google search bar. This command instructs Google to display results only from the domain you’ve specified. It’s a useful way to see how many pages from your site are indexed by Google.
By following these steps, you can quickly determine if your site has been successfully indexed by Google, allowing you to monitor its online presence and visibility. If your site doesn’t appear in the results, you may need to ensure that it is properly indexed or explore SEO strategies to improve its search engine ranking.
Using the URL Inspection Tool to Request Indexing
Google provides a handy tool known as the URL Inspection tool that allows website owners to gain more control over how their content is indexed. To use this tool, follow these steps:
1. Access Google Search Console: Log in to your Google Search Console account and select the property (website) for which you want to request indexing.
2. Navigate to URL Inspection: In the left-hand menu, click on “URL Inspection.”
3. Enter the URL: In the URL Inspection tool, enter the specific URL of the page you want to request indexing for. It could be a new page or an updated one.
4. Inspect URL: Click the “Inspect” button to initiate the inspection process. Google will check the status of the page and provide information about whether it’s indexed or not.
5. Request Indexing: If the page is not indexed or if you’ve made significant updates, you can request indexing by clicking the “Request Indexing” button. Google will then prioritise crawling and indexing of this page.
By using the URL Inspection tool, you can ensure that your important pages are promptly indexed by Google, helping them appear in search results faster and increasing their visibility.
This tool is especially useful when you’ve just published a new page or made significant changes to an existing one. It puts you in the driver’s seat, allowing you to take control of your website’s indexing process and improve your site’s overall SEO performance.
How Long Does it Take Google to Index Your Site?
The time it takes for Google to index your website is a dynamic process influenced by numerous factors. If you’ve just launched a new website or made substantial updates to your existing one, you might be eager to know when it will start appearing in search results. While there is no fixed timetable, it’s possible for your site to become visible to users and begin attracting organic traffic and conversions on the same day you submit it for indexing. However, Googlebot, the web crawler, operates efficiently but indexing time can be influenced by several factors, including your website’s content, structure, and overall SEO optimization.
According to John Mueller, a senior webmaster trends analyst at Google, the time it takes for a page to be indexed can vary widely. In general, it can take anywhere from several hours to several weeks. Mueller suggests that most good content is typically picked up and indexed within about a week. However, this timeframe can be influenced by factors such as the site’s popularity, authority, and crawl budget.
In general, Google doesn’t adhere to a rigid timeline for crawling and indexing new websites. The duration can fluctuate based on a website’s size, complexity, quality, and how frequently it’s updated. Consequently, it’s challenging to predict precisely how long it will take for a new website to be fully indexed. However, research and insights from Google experts suggest some average timeframes. Smaller websites with fewer than 500 pages tend to be indexed faster, typically within 4 days to 6 weeks. In contrast, larger websites with over 25,000 pages might take from 4 months to a year to complete the indexing process. Keep in mind that these are general estimations, and individual websites may experience variations in their indexing speed based on factors like the type of content, website authority, and crawl budget.
So, while Google aims to index content relatively quickly, the exact duration may fluctuate based on various website-specific factors. Therefore, it’s essential to be patient and focus on optimizing your site for efficient crawling and indexing, as outlined in the steps and strategies mentioned earlier.
How Google Crawls Your Site?
As per Google, when you submit your website’s URL to search engines, it uses a set of computers for crawling numerous pages that are registered online. In technical terms, it is known as Googlebot or “spider.” It starts by going through a list of web pages or URLs that are generated from the previous crawling. It then augments the pages along with the sitemap data that are provided in the Google Search Console. During the crawling process, it searches for new sites, updates on existing pages and broken links.
If new pages are registered, Google will automatically discover them after the crawling process and potentially list the page with the search results. After the crawling process, the results are then registered in the index of Google. When processing the result, Google looks for meta description, title tags, alt tags and other valuable information on a website.
In case your website contains dynamic content, the Googlebot may sometime fail to read and thus, crawls the default version. This is why; it is recommended to optimize the default version to ease the crawling process.
The Need For Submitting Your Website To Search Engine
There is no strict necessity for submitting your website to search engines. This is because, almost all search engine bots automatically find your website, provided the link has been mentioned on other sites. Well, this process may take some time and this is the reason, it is recommended to go for manual submission to speed up the process.
If you are completely new to the online market, then registering your site in a search engine is the most valuable point. It helps in increasing website traffic and eventually boosting your sales. Basically, it helps in growing your business without investing a lot.
Site owners initially prefer to submit URLs to Google because investing in organic search traffic is less expensive when compared to paid traffic. You need not pay the search engines to achieve website traffic.
Also, the submission process is pretty simple and it allows accessing a number of tools that helps a business in future.
What If Your Site Is Not Receiving Traffic from Search Engines?
Sometimes a site may not get the desired traffic, or at least the minimum even after proper crawling and indexing. This happens if your site ranks low in terms of search engine results. In such cases, you should opt for optimizing your site through implanting keywords and other valuable tools.
There are different strategies to rank your site on the first page and this is where a qualified team of experts can help.
Finally
It is suggested that you submit your website to Google through a sitemap. It helps search engines acquire additional information from your site and ensure enhanced indexing data.
Submitting your site to Google has lots of benefits. A new crawl over your site speeds up the process of ranking. This is a pivotal factor, especially eyeing the ever-changing SEO field.