{"id":498,"date":"2020-10-23T23:31:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T21:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnaboutwebsites.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2022-05-30T12:24:45","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T10:24:45","slug":"how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-website-indexed-by-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learnaboutwebsites.com\/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-website-indexed-by-google\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Your Website Indexed by Google (Faster)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Index<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I just Googled my own website, sadly it didn’t show up in the search results. I didn’t panic though, as I know it can take some time before Google crawls and indexes a brand new website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though, how long does it take to get a website indexed by Google?
A single day and up to 4 weeks, from the moment you’ve made your website crawlable for Google’s spiders. It’s possible to speed up the crawling process by connecting both Google Analytics and Search Console to your website and submitting your website’s sitemap.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the time, setting up these connections will get your website indexed in a matter of days. Though sometimes the reason why Google isn’t indexing your website might be very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making your website crawlable for Google’s spiders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the time of writing this blog post, more than 327 million domain names have been registered. Of Course, not all of these domains actually have a live website running on them. Though this will give you a general idea of how large the internet actually is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google is working all day long to index domains that have websites on them. In fact, their spiders are crawling every page for all existing websites, and this takes time. Though, before a spider can crawl a website, it will need some way of knowing it actually exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This could be as simple as a link pointing directly to a home page. Though most brand new websites won’t have any links pointing to them. That’s why it’s good practice to make your website known to Google by submitting a sitemap through Google Search Console.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way to notify Google of your website’s existence is by connecting it to Google Analytics. Once you’ve created an Analytics account, also connect it to your Search Console account. That way, all your search traffic data will be viewable from inside Analytics itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this might feel a little overwhelming, but rest assured. Creating these accounts and connecting them to your website can be done in less than an hour. I’ve created a helpful step-by-step guide on how to set everything up properly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though there are some issues that might prevent Google from indexing your website entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indexing issue checks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first thing you should try <\/strong>is using a proper search query. It takes quite a while for new websites to rank on Google. Your website could be indexed already, without you knowing it. To find out which of your URLs have been indexed by Google, use this query: site:domain.tld <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the search query I use for this website site:learnaboutwebsites.com<\/em>. Or you could just click this link<\/a> to get the same result. Just make sure you don’t add a space between “site:” and your domain name. You need to enter this query without any spaces at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second check<\/strong> is to enter your full domain name into your browser’s address bar. If your website doesn’t show up, it could be a DNS propagation problem. When connecting your domain name to your web host for the first time, it can take up 48 hours to propagate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your website needs to be accessible through your domain name. There’s just no way for Google to crawl your website if it’s not available yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though if your website does load, there are more checks <\/strong>you can do. Though this only applies when you’re using WordPress as your CMS<\/strong>. First login to your WordPress Back-end. Then click on “settings” and select “reading”. Make sure the “Search Engine Visibility” is unchecked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And if you’re using an SEO plugin like “All In One SEO” or “Yoast”, make sure it isn’t blocking your pages and posts from being indexed. Also, check if there’s functionality for creating a robot.txt file. This will help the Google Spiders figure out what it’s allowed to index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The final check<\/strong> only applies if you’ve bought a 2nd hand domain name. As your domain name might have been blacklisted, due to shady practices. You can check out which domains have reported copyright issues by using Google’s Transparency Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just enter your domain name in the search field and press enter. If nothing shows up, you’re OK. Another nifty tool is Google’s Safe Browsing<\/a>, where you can find websites that have been compromised. If you enter your domain here and get a hit, that might be the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a sitemap? (and how to create one) <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A sitemap is a blueprint of your website’s layout. It contains the URLs for all web pages, posts, and images you want Google to index. It’s actually very similar to the road map installed on your car’s navigation system (GPS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitemaps make it a lot easier for search engine spiders to navigate your website. If you’d like to see what your website’s sitemap looks like, all you have to do is add “\/sitemap.xml” after your domain name, like this: https:\/\/learnaboutwebsites.com\/sitemap.xml<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although having a sitemap for your website makes sense, it’s not mandatory to have one. As Google will still be craw your website even if you have a sitemap available. This is why it’s so to use internal links to every page you create.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m using the “All in One SEO” WordPress Plugin to create this website’s sitemap<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Creating a sitemap for your website isn’t something you should do manually. As it’s very time-consuming and prone to making mistakes. Luckily website builders like Wix and Squarespace will create a sitemap for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re using WordPress as your CMS, installing an SEO tool will do the job. Both “All In One SEO” and “Yoast” already have this functionality baked into them. Alternatively, you could install a WordPress plugin called Google Sitemap Generator<\/a> to do the work for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though if you’re not using these kinds of platforms, there’s still a way to make things easier. XML-Sitemaps<\/a> only require your website’s homepage URL for generating a full sitemap. Just make sure the pages you want indexed are linked to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you might have noticed, I’ve used the phrase “you WANT<\/span> indexed” several times. Because sometimes you might not want certain web pages to be indexed at all. For example: “Log-In Pages”, “Thank-You Pages” or any other pages, you don’t want to appear in the search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though not including a page in your sitemap doesn’t mean Google won’t find it. You’ll have to explicitly let Google know you don’t want that page to be indexed. You can do so by adding a “noindex” meta tag to the header section of that specific web page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t exclude the page by adding it to your robot.txt file, as you actually want search engines to find that “nofolow” meta tag.<\/p>\n\n\n