Submitting Your Website to Google
So you’ve created a website and are excited to get hits. You’ve optimised your content, uploaded great imagery and are proud of your achievement. But there’s an important step you shouldn’t miss and that’s submitting your website to Google to ensure it’s indexed.
Do I Really Need to Do This?
Kind of! Submitting your site to Google will allow search engine users to find it and allow you to start keeping track of your digital data. Sure, Google will usually find and index any valuable pages eventually, even if you don’t submit them. But this can take time, so it’s worth submitting your site to allow for prompt indexing. After all, if you’ve produced great content, you’ll want people to see it as soon as possible.
OK, So What’s the Process?
There are two main ways to submit a site to Google in 2021. You can either submit an updated sitemap to Google Search Console or submit the sitemap URL using Google’s ‘ping’ service. Both are quick and easy methods that won’t cost you a penny.
Submitting your Sitemap in Google Search Console
If you use WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify or a different CMS platform, your sitemap will probably have been created for you and you won’t have to do it manually. Once you’ve located your sitemap URL you can log into Google Search Console and select your website in the sidebar. From there, click on Sitemaps which is located under the Index section on the left hand side, remove any outdated sitemap URLs and paste in your new sitemap URL. All you then need to do is click Submit.
Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is a good idea as you’ll be alerted to any sitemap errors and will also be able to see if any pages haven’t been indexed. This will allow you to keep track of your website and ensure all is running smoothly for optimum visibility.
Submitting your Sitemap by Pinging Google
Google’s ‘ping’ service essentially prompts a fresh crawl of your sitemap. So, if you’ve added new webpages, it’ll prompt Google to index them quickly. All you need to do is to type the following into your browser, replacing the end part with your sitemap URL.
http://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=<complete_url_of_sitemap>
You will then see a Sitemap Notification Received message which explains that your site has been added to the list of sitemaps Google needs to crawl. Be sure to only use the ‘ping’ service for new or updated sitemaps.
The Benefits of Submitting your Site to Google
Submitting your site to Google has many benefits. For example:
- You’ll speed up the indexing process
- Sitemaps include the most important pages and help to avoid duplicate content
- A recrawl of your site will alert Google to new pages
- It tells Google about orphan pages which don’t have any internal links, These would otherwise be uncrawlable.
If you need help with any aspect of your SEO, web design or content marketing strategy, contact Whitefish Marketing today.
