It’s a question that often comes up among webmasters and SEOs:
How long does it take for a website to get indexed by Google?
The answer to this question, unfortunately, is not easy. Factors such as the age of the site, the number and quality of backlinks, and even Google’s whim can affect how quickly your website appears in search results.
However, there are some general guidelines you can follow to help ensure your site gets indexed as quickly as possible.
In this post, we’ll take a look at those guidelines and also offer some tips on how to speed up the indexing process. So read on to find out more!
What Is Google Indexation?
Google indexation is the process of adding websites and web pages to Google’s search engine. The indexation process includes crawling, which is when Googlebot discovers new or updated content and adds it to Google’s searchable index.
Once a page is indexed, it can show up as a result of relevant searches. Google uses various signals to decide which pages to index and how highly to rank them. Indexation is an important part of SEO, because if a page isn’t indexed, it can’t rank in search results.
When troubleshooting why a page isn’t ranking, checking the indexation status is often the first step.
There are a few ways to check if a page is indexed, including using Google Search Console and Search Operator. If a page isn’t indexed, there are a few potential reasons why, such as technical issues or low-quality content.
To encourage indexation, it’s important to have high-quality content that is well-optimized for relevant keywords. In addition, pages should be gated by either no index tags or robots.txt directives.
By following these best practices, you can help ensure that your pages are indexed and have a better chance of ranking highly in search results.
How Google Indexing Works
When you type a query into Google, the search engine scours its index of websites to find the most relevant results. But how does Google decide which pages are the most relevant? And how does it build its index in the first place?
Google’s index is constantly growing and changing as the company crawls the web to find new content. When Google finds a new website, it uses what’s called a web crawler, or spider, to extract the contents of that site.
The spider follows links from one page to another, collecting data as it goes. This data is then fed into Google’s algorithms, which analyze it and use it to rank pages in the search results.
There are hundreds of different factors that go into Google’s ranking algorithms, but some of the most important ones include things like the quality of content on a page, how often that page is linked to by other websites, and how many people are searching for the same term.
By taking all of these factors into account, Google is able to provide searchers with the most relevant results possible.
If you go on Google and try to search for your new website or one of its pages but it doesn’t appear in the results, this might mean that Google hasn’t indexed it yet. Indexing refers to when Google adds a new or updated page to its list of potential search results.
According to Google, usually it takes around a week for indexing to happen, although in some cases it can take weeks or even months.
If you’re questioning if your site or page is indexed, but want to be sure it’s not just buried in the results, you can type “site:” followed by the specific URL into Google Search. If it doesn’t show up at all, then congratulations! It means it isn’t indexed. Otherwise, for detailed insights on its status, check out Google Search Console.
The following are the primary determining factors of how long it takes Google to index your site, as well as what actions you can take to better ensure indexing.
Google’s Indexing Process
If we want to understand how long it takes Google to index a site, we first need to explain what indexing is and the events that happen during the two phases before it.
- Phase 1: Discovery: You can ensure that Google will find your website by acquiring backlinks, using an XML sitemap, and requesting indexing from the Google Search Console. This way, their crawlers will have no difficulty accessing any of your URLs.
- Phase 2: Crawling: The Googlebot needs to be able to access all your website’s data so that it can index your site properly. Make sure there are no barriers preventing the Googlebot from accessing important parts of your website.
- Phase 3: Indexing: Lastly, Google processes your website’s content during the indexing phase. However, this process can be slowed down by a few things such as: overreliance on JavaScript, poor content quality, and bad internal link structure.
The Google Visibility Checklist for New Websites
1. Robots.txt
If you want Google to index your content, double-check that your robots.txt file isn’t blocking search engine crawlers and bots by mistake. If you’re unsure of what a robots.txt file is, read about it here. Your website’s builder should be able to check if your file is set up correctly.
2. WordPress Dashboard
If your website is on WordPress, there’s a setting in the dashboard that says “discourage search engines from indexing this site”. When a site is new and under construction, it’s common to have this turned on so crawlers don’t try to index an unfinished product. But after launching, remember to turn it *off*.
3. Google Search Console
By connecting your website to Google Search Console, you can take advantage of their free site analysis and notification service. In addition, submit your sitemap and/or individual page URLs directly to Google for potential indexing in their search database.
4. Google Analytics
You’ll want to integrate Google Analytics with your site.
Much like Google Search Console, this is a free service that centers around logging and analyzing traffic coming to your site. Connecting your site to Google Analytics gives another way to inform the Google ecosystem of your website’s existence.
5. On-Page SEO
Making sure your pages are formatted correctly is crucial if you want them to show up on Google. While we won’t get into everything here, know that checklists like this one can be a helpful starting guide. Among the most integral aspects of On-Page SEO are meta tags, specifically the title and description tags.
Although no promises can be made, oftentimes if you configure these meta tags correctly, Google will use your information verbatim in search listings. This allows for more control over how your page appears when people look it up on Google.
6. Local SEO
Did you know that claiming your free Google My Business listing is one of the most straightforward ways to increase your local visibility online?
If it takes a few weeks for your website to appear on Google’s first page of search results, at least with this method you can guarantee some first-page real estate. Plus, if you need help setting up your GMB listings, here’s a great resource!
7. Backlinks
One method to get Google’s attention is having multiple other websites link to yours. The logic is that the more website links, the better.
You don’t need spammy or Blackhat SEO tactics; all you require is a bit of time and effort.
Let’s begin with the most self-evident spots. Ensure that all your social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have links leading back to your website respectively.
Once you’re done, head over to online directories such as the Yellow Pages, Manta, Yelp or your Chamber of Commerce and update your profiles.
With a little effort on your part, there are lots of chances for easy backlinks.
8. Content
Your website’s search engine visibility gets a boost in two ways when you publish high-quality, useful content.
First, it provides Google’s search engine crawlers with raw data to consume and index in their database. A well-written piece of content could result in your website appearing on page 1 of Google for many search terms.
More simply put, if other websites or bloggers are linking to your content, it is more likely to rank higher on Google. Backlinks serve as votes of confidence for your website and its contents.
Bottom Line
So how long does it take for a website to get indexed by Google?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer. It can depend on a variety of factors such as the freshness of your content, the crawl rate setting for your site, and how often Google is spidering your pages.
However, we hope that this article has given you an idea of what to expect and some tips on how to speed up the process.
