When a new page or content is added to a website or part of its content is modified, Google bots take some time to detect and crawl it and include it in its index. It is, therefore, essential to speed up the indexing process and ensure that the changes or new content appear as soon as possible in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) so that users can access it easily via search engines.
To index a website, using Google Search Console (GSC) is essential, and you can add the different pages of a website manually or altogether by using sitemap files. We’ll get back to it in a second.
How websites are indexed in Google
Understanding how Google crawls websites is crucial for facilitating a faster and more efficient indexing process.
Google spiders are constantly monitoring the Internet for new content or modifications made to the pages already indexed. In this way, its database of websites is continuously updated so that users can find updated information more easily.
What is an indexed page?
A web page is said to be indexed when Google adds it, and it is accessible in the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages). That means indexing is a vital process for those who want to drive traffic to their website from various search engines such as Google.
Methods to index content in Google quickly
Using Google Search Console, you can add pages for Google to verify and add to its index, helping this process to be done in much less time than naturally.
To use the features in GSC, you need to prove to Google that you are the actual owner of the website. This process is done by adding an HTML code that GSC provides to your website’s header section. Then you need to wait a bit for Google bots to check whether the code in the header section of your website matches the code provided to you by GSC. If everything is done correctly, you should be able to start using the features like “indexing” in Google Search Console in no time.
There are two different ways to submit URLs that you want to be indexed by Google in the GSC:
Manually indexing
Manual indexing is generally preferred by publishers when editions are made to the content. To index a page manually, the following steps must be followed:
- Go to the Google Search Console website.
- In the left side menu, select URL Inspection.
- Enter the address of the page to be indexed.
- Google will search if it is already indexed, and if not, it will queue it to be checked and added to the index.
Indexing via sitemap files
Sitemaps are files that contain information about the pages of a website. Creating a sitemap includes a list of the URLs that make up a website and other relevant information. These files, usually in .XML format, can be sent to Google to tell it to add all the URLs they contain to Google’s index.
The process for indexing a website with Google Search Console using a sitemap file is as follows:
- Create or generate the sitemap file. If this sounds complicated, don’t worry, we’ll explain in detail how you can create a sitemap file in a moment.)
- Go to the Google Search Console website.
- In the left sidebar, select the Sitemaps option.
- Enter the sitemap URL and click on the Submit button. (Sitemap files are usually found at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml or yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml unless you place it somewhere else under your root file.
- Google will add the sitemap to verify all the URLs it contains to its index.
How to create a Sitemap file
Sitemaps are files that contain information about the pages of a website to search engine spiders visiting the site. As the name suggests, it can be briefly summarized as a map of a website.
Creating a sitemap involves including a list of the URLs that make up a website and other relevant information about the site, such as category URLs. These files, usually in .XML format, can be sent to Google via GSC to tell it to add all the URLs they contain to Google’s index.
If you use WordPress, there are tons of plug-ins that create sitemap files for you just in seconds. If you don’t use WordPress as CMS, you can easily find an external free online service that will create a sitemap for your site by doing a quick search on Google.
Advanced tactics to get your page indexed faster
Some site owners want their content to be indexed by Google in as little as minutes. Think, for example, of a newspaper that posts news about the death of a celebrity. The faster their pages get indexed, the more traffic they will get, right?
For such cases, there are advanced strategies that can be implemented to get your pages indexed so much faster compared to indexing via GSC.
Submit Your Site to Google News
Although not officially recognized by Google, it has been shown that Google indexes new pages much faster for sites that are added to Google News. There are many websites that get their new content indexed in just a few minutes, and the one thing they have in common is that they are already listed in Google News.
How to Submit Your Site to Google News?
Submitting your website to Google News is quite easy and beneficial. Here are the steps:
- Go to the Google Publishing Center and click on “Add publication”.
- Complete the specific information it asks for about your website:
- Description of your website
- The category that best describes your site
- Primary language of your website.
- Your Website’s URL.
- Contact person
- Tracking Code (Google Analytics code).
- You will then be able to add an RSS feed to your post, a custom logo, and even set up Google ads if you want to monetize your content.
- When you’ve filled in everything required and accepted the terms and conditions, you’re ready to publish.
- That’s it! You submitted your site to Google News. Now you just have to wait for 2 to 4 weeks (generally, it takes a few days) to find out if your content is accepted or not.
Build a Strong Backlink Profile
Sites with a strong backlink profile are identified by Google as having high authority. This increases the trustworthiness of your website in the eyes of Google and its users. In this way, Google gives your website extra advantages, such as immediate indexing of new or edited content.
However, if you are not extremely careful in building a solid backlink profile, your website is likely to be penalized by Google, and if this happens, you are likely to lose all your rankings and organic keywords as well as your traffic. That’s why you should consider hiring an SEO agency for link-building services who are experts, referenced, and have years of experience in this field.
How to know if Google has already indexed my content
The best way to find out if Google has already included a page in its index is to use the “site” search operator. To do this, you have to follow a series of very simple steps.
- Go to the Google search engine.
- Enter the following command in the search field: site:domain.com
- Hitting enter or the search button will return a list of URLs for this website, and you can check if a specific page or content has been indexed.
For example, if we want to know the different pages that have been indexed for the domain www.internationalseo.agency, we would have to enter the following in the Google search engine, as seen in the image above.
site:www.internationalseo.agency
The results obtained from this search would contain all the URLs that Google has indexed for this domain. The URLs that do not appear in that search are pages not yet indexed by Google.
Conclusion
We have seen how to know if Google has indexed your website and the ways to speed up the indexing process and get new URLs or modified content faster indexed in the SERP.
Indexing a website in Google should be a priority process for every website and online store because it is the best way to make your content available to users and thus increase the online visibility of your website.
Looking for an expert agency to increase the online visibility of your website or e-Commerce? At www.internationalseo.agency, we have a team of experts that will help you boost your website image on the internet, contact us!
