Ever wondered how to get Google to index your site as often as you’d like to see it? Getting your web page indexed quickly and accurately is important for user experience. If your site isn’t already indexed by Google, then chances are your potential visitors aren’t either. This could mean losing out on opportunities to convert into customers and even losing out on brand awareness.

Google is the largest search engine. It has over 200 ranking factors. If you want your web page ranked highly in search engines, you must focus on multiple areas.

If you wish to get Google to index your site, you’ll need to submit your site using their webmaster tools.

What Does Indexing Mean?

Before going further into the methods to get Google to index your site, let’s quickly define the indexing process.

Indexing is the primary method by which Google stores webpages and other online content. It keeps track of pages and pieces of information about those pages, using keywords or similar terms as “tags” to indicate relatedness.

Here Are the Methods to Get Google to Index Your Site

There are many different ways to get Google to index your website, but they all have one thing in common: they require manual work. But don’t worry about getting caught up in the details. We are here to help!

Use robots.txt

Robots.txt is a simple, plain text document that tells search engines which pages aren’t indexed by spiders but instead require user interaction before being shown to web surfers.

Robots are machines that go around looking for stuff on the Internet. They can be controlled by you or other users who want them to do certain things — such as the indexing process of your website. You can give robots instructions by putting your site into the robots.txt file.

The rules include instructions to exclude certain types of content, such as images, scripts, and other kinds of media. These rules also allow you to specify which parts of your site visitors should see based on their browser settings or cookies. Otherwise, if your site does not have a robots.txt file, then the search engine spiders will index everything, including images and other online content that you might not want them to include.

Your first step is to check whether your new site has a Robots.txt file. You could do this by FTP or clicking File Manager in your Control Panel. If it’s not there and you want to make one, you can do so quite easily using a simple text editor like Notepad.

Each page should follow certain rules so that Google recognizes what you’re trying to do and serves your content accordingly.

Websites use robots.txt files to determine whether search engine bots should access certain areas of a site. By default, the standard robots.txt file contains a single rule that allows the crawling of any page.

For example, your robots.txt may contain the following rule: User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-content/themes/. However, you may want to disallow GoogleBot from accessing your content. Alternatively, you can choose to allow all robots except those named after Google, Yahoo!, etc. You can create multiple rules inside the robots.txt file.

It’s essential to be careful when manually editing your robots.txt file because it’s easy accidentally to make a mistake if that isn’t something you do regularly. Wrongly done, you can accidentally hide your website from crawlers. If you’re unsure how to do this, better hire a competent developer to protect yourself from encountering such issues.

But Be Sure to Remove Crawl Blocks from Your Robots.txt File

As previously mentioned, you can use robots.txt files to block or allow certain parts of your website from being crawled by search bots. However, these files are rarely used nowadays, as most webmasters prefer to use meta tags instead.

If you want to exclude a page using robots.txt, look for these two snippets in youryourdomain.com/robots.txt.

  • User-agent: Googlebot

           Disallow: /

  • User-agent: *

           Disallow: /

As you can see, both of these tell Googlebot that it isn’t allowed to crawl any pages. To fix the issue, remove each line.

Crawl block in robots.txt may cause problems if Google couldn’t index a single web page. Add the URL into the URL Inspection tool in the Google Search Console, and click on the Coverage Block to see more details about what’s going wrong. Look for the “crawl allowed? No: Blocked by robots.txt” error.

Remove unnecessary lines that could render your web pages unindexed. You can also add rel “nofollow” to links that point to other pages on your site. This means that search engines will recognize these links as non-authoritative sources of information. As a result, users won’t see those pages or links within their results list.

Eliminate noindex tags

You can use robots.txt or meta refresh tags to prevent search engines from showing your page to the public.

For the Meta tag

Knowing that this page won’t get indexed when you find these tags in the <head> section.

  • <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex”>
  • <meta name=“googlebot” content=“noindex”>

Meta Robots Tags give instructions to search engines about what to do with each web page. For example, you may want to add a noindex tag to some pages on your website if you don’t want them appearing in search results.

Here’s what you need to do: For any page that uses the Google Analytics tracking code, remove the noindex directive tag from that page. You should also make sure to change any other place where the word “noindex” appears.

For the X-Robots-Tag

A crawler respects the X-Robots-Tag HTTP request header. To achieve this, you’ve got to use a server-side programming language like PHP, change your httpd.conf file, or add something to .htaccess.

Remove the noindex meta tags from any pages where it does not belong.

Add Webpages to the XML Sitemap and Audit Your Site Map

An XML sitemap helps Google crawl your website more efficiently, and it can help you make sure that your content is indexable. In addition, you can use it to tell Google what pages are most important to your business and what pages aren’t worth crawling.

Use the Sitemaps tool to add your pages to the XML sitemap. If you still get the error message “URL is not on Google,” then there may be other major issues preventing your site from being crawled, such as bad links or robots.txt file problems.

You’ve set up a new site map. It contains URLs to resources on your site that were previously listed only in the Robots Exclusion Standard. Be sure that search engines see this update by pinging this URL below but change the last part with your sitemap URL path:

https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap_url.xml

Eliminate Rogue Canonical Tags

With a canonical tag, you let Google know your preferred version of your pages. You’ll want to use this if you’re using multiple languages or a non-English language.

Since most pages have no canonical tag, Google prefers to use the original content as the canonical source. The only exception is a self-referenced canonical meta tag. That means that your site has multiple versions of a page, but instead of having a canonical tag on each instance, there is a single canonical tag pointing to the main version of the page.

If you use a rogue canonical URL, then Googlebot will think it means a different site than what you mean. Because of this, your web pages won’t show up in search results. Also, if you remove or edit a canonical tag, then pages may start receiving duplicate content penalties from Google.

For search engine optimization purposes, you might want to make sure your site links to the right page by pointing it to the correct canonical link. CheckGoogle’s URL Inspection Tool.

Double Check Your Orphan Pages

Pages without internal links pointing to themselves are called “orphan” pages. Such a page is any web page that appears in search rankings but does not have any other low-quality content linking to it. As a result, visitors see these pages as useless since they are not linked by anything external to the site.

To solve this problem, you need to create a sitemap — a list of all your pages. You’ll then see a map of how Google finds your site when it crawls it. That way, if you’ve forgotten to create a page somewhere else on your site, Google can still find it.

With the introduction of Schema markup, Google discovered orphan pages more easily. Now you’ll have a chance to tell Google about your page’s structure, keywords, rel author and schema.org markup, and other information.

There are two ways to fix orphan pages:

  • If the page is meaningless or irrelevant, you should delete it and remove it from your XML sitemap.
  • You can use linking pages within your site or blog posts to make navigation easier by directing visitors to related topics or other pages on your site. Internal links increase search engine optimization scores. This article contains many examples of how you can use internal linking effectively.

NoFollow Internal Link Fixups

Nofollow tags tell Google search algorithms not to crawl the pages on that site. Google considers this as passing link juice to you because it’s likely that someone else links back to you. On the other hand, the noindex directive tells Google that you want your page to stay off the web. Since no spiders can access your site, you won’t show up in any search visibility.

In general, you should use nofollow tags if you want to pass PageRank off to another site, but you shouldn’t do it if your goal is to increase organic search traffic. The reason is that search engines might decide that the other site is irrelevant or has low value. So it would help if you used the nofollow tags sparingly.

Using nofollow prevents search engines from seeing incoming hyperlinks to your site. Search engines see no follow tags as a signal that you do not want to enable backlinks to pass PageRank to your website. In many cases, you’ll want to use rel nofollow to prevent search engine spiders and bots from following spammy, low quality, or irrelevant links to your site.

It would help if you also used the noindex directive on any page that does not contain valuable content relevant to your business or industry. In addition, you should ensure that all internal links to indexed pages are followed.

Make Sure the Web Pages Are Unique and Informative

Google isn’t likely to index low-quality pages because they hold no value to its users or contribute to user experience.

Review the page with fresh eyes if you’re having trouble getting indexed by Google Search Console. Remember that user experience is a big factor before potential buyers look for it.

A site may be optimized technically but not be worth visiting because it doesn’t provide any real value to users. To determine whether a site offers value, review it with a critical eye. Ask yourself: Do users find value on this page? Will someone click through to this page if they saw it as part of the search results? This is your guide so you can have an idea of improving your organic search traffic.

Your Website Must Have High-Quality Backlinks

High-quality backlinks are a vote of confidence. If you’re linked to another site, the chances are that you’ve done something right. You might be the source of valuable information or piece of content on SEO. Your website could provide a place for your visitors to go. Because Google Search Console sees a piece of content with high-quality links as more important, it will likely crawl and re-crawl those pages before other sites.

Make Sure That Not Indexed Pages Remain As Such

You can tell Google what pages should be excluded from the search bar by following the instructions below. Note that if you use robots.txt files, the exclusion directives take precedence over any others present. Here are the common pages you should not include in the indexing process of your website:

Thank You Pages

Thank you pages often help to capture potential customers. While most consumers won’t fill out your form if they see there’s nothing else in front of them, putting a thank you page in front gives potential buyers something to look at while they’re waiting. Unfortunately, indexing this page could potentially lead to losing leads that can’t fill out.

Duplicate Piece of Content

Google recognizes identical pages in different locations as duplicates and treats them as such. So if you’re testing a new layout, it’s better to avoid using similar content types across multiple pages.

Duplicate content leads to lower search engine rankings. So you might be tempted to remove some old pages before launching your new website. But if you do that, Google won’t see them, and they’ll count as duplicates. That could end up hurting your chances for better search results.

Both pages are likely carrying the same amount of keyword weight. To ensure you’re delivering high-quality content to users on each page, consider using some additional keywords or phrases to help distinguish each page.

On the Finer Points of Internal Linking

Internal linking is one of the vital aspects of getting indexed fast by search engines. This is because every time a visitor clicks on a link, the web server records that as a “click.” Your site then receives credit for that “click.”

Create links within your site to relevant content and create links from high traffic pages back to their source. This helps improve the rankings of your pages. Links are the foundation of any website, and if you’ve got them organized properly, you’ll be able to create links within your website to and from all the most important pages.

Many website owners overlook site structure as being unimportant. However, certain page sections can drastically affect how others perceive the page. For example, if too many broken links on a page, it may be perceived as spammy. As such, it could negatively influence the user’s experience. On the other hand, a simple and clean design can help create a positive impression on potential visitors.

Well-organized site architecture establishes a hierarchy among pages, allowing search engines to grasp what you’re trying to do fully. It’s also a great idea to follow a simple, straightforward layout that clarifies where a human user needs to get information. Keep things simple.

Each page in the hub should contain many unique pieces of information, including text, images, videos, polls, and links. These pages should also include additional pages that refer to some of the hubs’ main pages. Make sure that each newer piece of information you add reinforces what others might already know about your topic.

Get Inbound Link Credits

Internal links are helpful resources spiders, and search engines use to get information about your website. However, the most useful links come from other websites linking back to you. These inbound links indicate how well your content on SEO is being shared and spread across the web.

To stay competitive, you should promote your website to as many places as possible. The more places a search engine sees your site, the greater the chance that some of them will check your site for crawl errors.

Here are some places you can do it:

  • Content Syndication
  • Medium
  • Guest posting
  • Infographic Directories
  • LinkedIn Pulse

Create High-Quality Content

Remove pages you think maybe harm your site’s performance, in other words, the low-quality pages. Every page on your site must be useful to visitors. Your content should be unique and interesting. Pages containing duplicate content issues may cause problems for your SEO strategy and usability.

To make sure Googlebot crawls your website, add a rel “canonical” tag that points to your most relevant pages. Ensure that each section of your website has some value to visitors and that there aren’t duplicate content issues across different areas of your website.

Why It Matters To Be Indexed by Google Search

The indexing process is essential to establish rankings, attract organic traffic, and reach your goals for your website. SEO techniques help you optimize your website for better visibility in search engines. Many factors affect how often organic search traffic visits your site but optimizing them helps boost your rank and increase organic search traffic.

The indexing process should be done periodically to keep your pages fresh. It is also recommended to index every page on your website to ensure your pages are easy to locate by search engines.

Put in some effort into getting your website indexed by search engines. Use a sitemap generator and submit that to Google. It would help if you also looked into your robots.txt file to ensure it’s working properly. For more info, read this article.

Your site needs to be optimized to rank well organically. Organic ranking factors include keyword density, blog content, title tags, internal linking, links back to your site, social media sharing, and more.

How to Know Your Website Is Indexed by Google

It’s worthwhile noting that if you’re using the Google Search Console tool, you can use the Overview report to see how many pages are indexing for URLs by Google.

Google Search Console > Index > Coverage Look at the number of valid pages.

Two numbers total anything other than zero if you are using Google Analytics for the first time. That means that Google knows about the pages on your site which are indexed.

Use the Google Search Console to know if your site is listed under Search Engine Results Pages. Then, paste the URL into the URL inspection tool. If the page appears there, it means it’s indexed by Google. If it shows up as “not” indexed, it means Google hasn’t crawled it yet.

How Long Does It Take for Google to Index a Site?

It takes Google a maximum of a few weeks for a crawling process to return results for a website. You can speed up the process by following some simple guidelines. To ensure that your website shows up as soon as possible in searches performed by people using Google search, make sure that you use several keywords within each page or your site. Make sure you’re using phrases instead of single words.

To End

There is no one-size-fits-all when applying methods to get Google to index your website. It involves more than one way to get your web pages crawled. Do you need some help with your SEO and digital marketing campaigns? ITD Web Design is here to help you. Contact us for more details.