10 Secrets to Get Indexed

Your blog or website is still not getting indexed by Google?

I will share with you my secrets on how to get listed in Google search results really quickly.

In my tests, I managed to get a new blog indexed in less than 24 hours.

I did a lot of research on how to index a website faster in Google, and you should take into consideration the idea of getting indexed by Google given that, in some cases, it can take more than a couple of weeks till Google starts indexing your posts.

But before we get to fix why your new posts are not appearing on Google, it is essential to understand how Google works, how it does the indexing and how he is listing search results.

First, How Google Works?

Before getting to the details on how you can get Google to index your blog, we need to first understand these three words: Googlebot, crawling, indexing.

• The Googlebot

This is the software used to search that is used by Google to gather new information that has been uploaded online so that it can be fed on Google pages.

Once information that you had uploaded is picked up by this software, then it can be found on Google pages. You can read more about this here.

• Crawling

This is the process where the software named above, Googlebot, roams from site to site detecting any new information to be uploaded to Google.

This software works by going through new links that have been uploaded recently and which are generating a lot of traffic.

• Indexing

Once the information has been gathered by the Googlebot through the process called crawling, it is processed through another process called indexing.

It is through this process that the quality of content is determined so that they can be placed appropriately on Google pages.

The question now is, how exactly does Google work?

You will connect the dots if you watch this video by Matt Cutt where he explains how Google search works:

How to See if Your Site is Indexed

I’ll show you the most straightforward way you can see if Google crawled and indexed your blog.

All you have to do is to go to Google.com and search for site:yourblogname.com (where you replace yourblogname.com with your actual domain name. For me is site:istartblogging.com).

You should now see all your indexed pages.

If you get no results for that search, this means your blog is not indexed, and you should try the steps below.

How to Get Indexed by Google

Extremely important for WordPress users: Make sure you have search engine visibility turned on! Check the WordPress Admin -> Settings -> Reading -> Search Engine Visibility

What happens if your website or blog is new?

These are my secret 10 steps that will quickly help new blogs or websites get indexed by Google:

• Generate a Sitemap

A sitemap is a document on your site which lists all the pages that are on your site.

It is this sitemap that notifies search engines whenever there is a new page. It will also report when it is time to check for new pages on the site. For example, you can set it to check for updates daily or weekly.

I use and recommend this WordPress plugin: Google XML Sitemaps.

Here is a video that will help you install and use this plugin to generate a sitemap:

• Use Google Search Console

All sitemaps should be taken to Google Search Console.

For first-timers, this will be done by creating a free Google account after which you will sign up for Search Console.

Once you are through with this, add the details of your site. Then click on Sitemaps which is where you will add the link that directs to your site.

You will understand better how to create the Google Search Console (Webmasters Tools) account and submit the sitemap from this video:

You can also do the same with Bing.

• Setup Google Analytics

You should set up Google Analytics to know more about the traffic that your blog has.

It also notifies Google whenever there is a new website that has been created.

You can use this plugin to set it on your WordPress Blog: Google Analytics by Yoast. Here is an instructional video:

• Submit the Site to Search Engines

This usually works very fast (the pages get indexed in a few minutes).

This will only take a short while, and it does not cost you a thing to do it. You will do this by signing into the Google account you had created earlier and select the submit URL option. This will be found in Search Console.

Here is an excellent tutorial on how to use the Fetch as Google tool:

• Update your Social Profile

The only way in which a crawler can get to your site is through links. If you want the links to be easily and quickly viewed, you should add the link to your social profile and create business profiles for the website.

This will include in Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube among others.

• Share the Link of Your New Site

Once the link to your website has been added to your social site profiles, you should go ahead and share it to as many people as possible.

These links will notify the search engines which have been designed to locate any new links shared on social sites.

• Bookmarking

When it comes to bookmarking, you should only go for high quality bookmarking sites to also show that whatever you are bookmarking is high quality as well.

It gives it more credibility.

Such sites are like delicious and stumbleupon.

• Creating Offsite Content

To aid in the link building process, you should acquire more links that lead to your site.

This is possible by creating content outside the site (offsite content) like frequently writing guest posts to other blogs that are related to yours. Also, you should submit quality articles to the various article directories as well as search engine optimization articles to sites that distribute them to other sites. However, this will only work only if your content will pass their quality mark. You have to be a great writer for this to work.

If you want to study more about this, check out this guide.

• Setting up Your RSS with Feed burner

Google has an RSS management tool called feed burner.

Sign into the Google account you created earlier, and then submit the feed of your site to the feed burner by copy-pasting the URL that leads to your website on the “burn a feed” icon. This will aid in notifying Google that a new article has been uploaded to your site each time you do so.

• Submitting to Blog Directories

Blogs have a directory which makes it easier to locate them online.

Toprank has a long list of such blogs and joining this would increase your chances of being found on Google. Submit your blog URL and RSS feed here (your RSS feed is at yourdomainname.com/feed).

For those whose blogs have a lot of content, you should try out alltop.

Conclusion

The most important steps are first 5. They usually give excellent results.

Once you have taken these steps, you can try again and test to see if Google has indexed your blog by performing the site:yourblogdomain.com search.

If you don’t see your blog listed after 24 hours, don’t get crazy about it. Maybe, in your case, Google will index the blog in a few days.

Once listed in Google search results, the content that you will post on your site will be easily noticed by more people. Also sharing the same information on your social media profiles and not just relying on Google alone will add to the greater success of your blog.

Let’s make this guide better on getting a blog indexed by Google!

Please share your experience or your tips below: