Getting Your New Content Indexed Fast

There are many discussions in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) circles debating how to get new content indexed quickly. In a Webmaster Hangout, John Mueller (Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google), discouraged using Google’s Search Console’s URL Submit Tool. He also suggested some different ways of making sure that new content is properly crawled and indexed quickly. 

"In general for most websites you shouldn’t need to use this tool at all.
…there should be no need for you as a normal webmaster to submit any individual URLs for kind of the normal day to day sites, like through the search console through the URL tool.”

It's not Google's Fault

John Mueller went on to address the common problem of Google not picking up the content as fast as the creator wants. He explained that this is often the publishers fault, not Google’s and that if content is not being indexed then it’s up to the publisher to diagnose the problem.

John offered some suggestions that may help to identify what might cause Google to not index a page and offered some solutions:

“If you’re seeing that we’re not picking up new content as quickly as we could I would make sure that you’re linking to it from a visible place on your website and also maybe putting it in maybe a site map file or RSS feed or anything like that.”

When Should Google URL Submit Tool be used?

Mueller said that the URL Submit Tool is generally not needed. Then he elaborated with a scenario where it is needed in an emergency.

Recovering from a hack event is probably one of the most pressing emergency situations because hackers are known to add spammy links and content to web pages and most publishers want Google to crawl those pages once they have been disinfected immediately and have the content indexed.

“…The one time I would recommend using the submit URL tool is when you have like real issues on your website that you urgently need to fix and you urgently need to have Google reflect that in the search results.

So for example you removed something private that you actually published. That would be a good candidate for this tool. Maybe you had the wrong phone number on your title in your search results and people were calling up someone else accidently. That would be something that you’d want to get kind of reindexed and processed as quickly as possible.”

Getting your New Content Indexed Fast

  1. Link to new content from an exisiting, more prominent page on your website
  2. Add a reference to a new page in your site map
  3. Make sure that new content is shown in an RSS feed and that the RSS feed is accessible and not blocked from crawlers

At our digital agency in Leeds, we can help your business become more visible in search engine results by implementing SEO strategies that improve organic search visibility, strengthen your backlink profile and help your customer to engage with you and convert more effectively. Our digital strategies are adaptive and move with your market to deliver the best results. Contact Ascensor now and find out how you can maximise your online visibility. 

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