One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to SEO is this:
Indexing is a passive process.
Many webmasters believe that all you have to do is create new pages and wait for Google to rank them for you.
But that couldn’t be more wrong!
Your site needs to be set up to facilitate the work of crawling spiders.
When a Google bot comes to your website, you want it to visit every page to ensure that all your content is getting indexed. You also want it to detect any changes in your old content. Which allows your updated pages to climb to the top much faster.
In this article, you’ll learn everything about indexing, how it works, and how long it takes. We’ll share with you the best tips and practices to get your site indexed faster.
Let’s dive in.
How Does Web Indexing Work?
Crawling spiders will come across a page and scan it for content.
After that, the content is stored in Google’s index — which is the main database for search. Once someone searches for terms related to that page, it’s served to them as a search result on Google search engine results pages (SERPs).
Your indexed results may be updated whenever another spider visits your pages and detects any changes.
How Long Does it Take for Google to Index Your Site?
First, you need to understand the difference between ranking and indexing.
An indexed page is a web page that’s already in the search engine’s database. It doesn’t necessarily have high rankings. Yet, it appears in the SERPs when searched for specifically.
On the other hand:
Ranking is all about getting your content on the first pages of Google so you can drive more traffic to your site.
Indexing takes a much shorter period compared to ranking.
Crawling spiders can visit and index a new web page within the first 24 hours of publication.
But here’s what you should expect in general:
For a recently launched website, it takes from two days up to a month to get new pages indexed. That’s because your site is unknown and doesn’t have many links leading crawlers to it.
Larger brands, such as news websites, can get their new pages indexed within the day due to the high authority of their domains.
How to Know if Google is Indexing Your Website?
There are many reasons why knowing the indexation status of your pages is important. The most obvious ones being improving your rankings and boosting organic traffic.
You can check if Google is indexing your site in a few seconds and take quick actions to solve any problems.
The easiest way to do that is by using this search parameter:
Site:”yourwebsitelink.com”
This gives you the number of indexed pages on Google and how they appear in the SERPs with their links, titles, and descriptions.
For specific pages, you can use the exact link of the page:
Site:yourwebsitelink.com/webpage
Of course, not getting any results here means that your page hasn’t yet been indexed.
If you’ve already added Google Search Console to your site, you can use the URL Inspection tool to do this.
Enter your page URL and you’ll get your page status. If the page isn’t indexed, you can request its’ indexation to speed up the process.
Why is Google Not Indexing Your Site?
If Google is not indexing your web pages, it could be one of the following reasons:
- Your site is new, and Google needs time to discover all its’ pages
- A recent site reconstruction has caused some redirect issues and missing links, which are misleading to crawlers
- You manually removed some pages from your Google Search Console account
- You’ve blocked some pages in your robots.txt file or used the noindex meta tag
- You received a manual penalty from Google that’s preventing your pages from ranking
- You have security issues or site reports which made search engines block your domain
Fortunately, all those errors are easily reversible. Once you identify what’s the problem with your site indexing, you can fix it in just a few steps.
How to Index Your Website Faster on Google
Google wants the best content at the top, and it’s ready to give your website a chance to get there.
But before getting any rankings…
You must help crawling spiders find your valuable content.
Here are the best tips and tricks to help Google index your site fast:
1- Install Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free platform to help you track your site performance in the SERPs. It gives you valuable insight into your site indexing status and online visibility.
This tool will help Google index your site and discover your newly published pages within the day. You can even request the indexation of your new pages using the URL inspection tool.
2- Internal Linking and Navigation
For faster indexation, spiders need to crawl your whole site each time they come across it. And the best way to do that is through internal linking and navigation.
If all your web pages are interlinked, you’ll create an efficient way for bots to reach your newest pages.
The same is true for your site’s navigation, which is why it must contain your most crucial parent pages. It allows spiders to move from there to other child pages down the hierarchy.
3- Publish New Content
New content is most often the reason crawling spiders come back to your site regularly. Search engines love fresh content and will always prioritize it.
So:
If all your pages are old and static, bots will be less likely to visit them.
One of the most efficient ways to publish new content is to have a blog section on your website. You can write valuable articles there for your audience and attract crawling spiders more frequently.
4- Backlinks
High-quality inbound links won’t only improve rankings and bring traffic, but they also help with faster indexation.
How?
The more inbound links your site has, the more crawlers will visit your pages. Especially if those backlinks are coming from authoritative, trusted sources with high rankings and huge amounts of traffic.
The truth is:
If you want to gain more backlinks, you must create awesome content worth sharing. We wouldn’t recommend buying links from any sources as that can get your website penalized overnight and lose all its rankings.
5- Create a Sitemap
A sitemap is an XML file that helps crawlers find your new pages quickly. It allows spiders to discover and visit all your pages from a single source.
Creating a sitemap is a simple process that can be done in many ways.
The easiest way to do that is by installing a plugin (if you’re using WordPress) to generate a sitemap file for you. It will also be automatically updated each time a new page is published.
First:
Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. You could do that directly from the plugin’s library in the admin dashboard.
Next:
Under Yoast SEO from the left menu, click on General then Features. From here, you can enable XML Sitemaps.
Finally:
Submit the sitemap to Google using your GSC account.
From the left menu, click on Sitemaps, and enter the link to your XML file (typically sitemap_index.xml).
Click Submit, and you’re good to go!
Google will now show you how many pages are on your website, and the last time a spider read your sitemap.
6- Social Media Marketing
Social media is another way you can go about improving indexing speed.
Links from social media won’t directly help improve rankings. However, Google crawls these platforms frequently. So, this is an easy way to nudge spiders towards your website.
And the best part is that it won’t take much time from you or your team to do.
You can set up an automated posting system to share your posts. Which continually drives new traffic as well as crawling spiders to your new content and updated pages.
Wrapping It Up
Indexing is the first step to getting top ranking spots with SEO. It helps you deliver your best content to your target audience.
With the techniques we shared in this guide, you don’t have to leave anything to chance. You’ll easily improve your site indexing speed and get your pages discovered faster.
Ready to skyrocket your business with SEO?
Operation Technology is a top-rated SEO agency that will help you uncover untapped growth opportunities.
Don’t hesitate to contact us or give us a call at 773-789-8636. We’ll be happy to discuss your project needs.
