How long after launch should my site appear in Google?

Days to a few weeks for discovery and indexing, with no promise from Google. A sitemap and at least one link from a page Google already crawls speed it up. If nothing is indexed after a month, look for a block rather than waiting longer.

Should I request indexing for every page?

No. The URL Inspection tool's Request indexing has a small daily quota per property and queues a crawl without guaranteeing indexing. Use it for a handful of important pages after a real change. A sitemap and internal links do the same job at scale.

Why is only my home page indexed?

Google crawls outward from the pages it finds first, and a page linked only from the sitemap is the last to be reached. Make sure every page is linked from another page, ideally from the navigation or a hub.

Should I write blog posts in the first month?

Write the two pages buyers search for instead: the job you do, and the alternative to what they use now. Those convert. Posts about the industry can wait until you know which questions your users repeat.

When can I judge whether SEO is working?

Not in month one. Impressions on specific queries in month two or three are the first real signal. Clicks on non-brand searches take longer, and Google has said the benefit of the work shows over four months to a year.

The first thirty days after launching a site

In the first month your site is being discovered, not ranked. The work is making sure Google can reach everything, getting the first links and listings, and writing the two pages buyers search for. Here is the month week by week, and the figures that will look alarming and mean nothing.

By Théophile Louvart, founder of Porteur · Updated 15 September 2026 · Markdown

What is actually happening in month one

Google finds a new site through links from pages it already knows, and through the sitemap you submit. Then it crawls, decides what to index, and only then does ranking enter the picture.

Discovery and indexing take days to a few weeks for a new site. Google gives no promise on timing.
Ranking on anything competitive takes months. Google has said the benefit of SEO work shows over four months to a year.
Search Console shows nothing until the property is verified and Google has crawled, and its data lags about two days.
There is no confirmed sandbox. A new site is not being held back on purpose; it has no signals yet.

Week one: make sure nothing blocks you

Check for a staging block
Open yourproduct.com/robots.txt and view the source of a live page for a meta robots noindex. A block carried over from staging is the most common reason a launched site stays invisible.
Verify Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
A domain property verified by DNS covers every subdomain and both protocols. Bing imports from Search Console in one click and feeds Copilot and part of the others.
Submit the sitemap in both
It should list only the URLs you want indexed. The report then shows the status, the date last read and the URLs discovered.
Check the redirects land in one hop
http to https and www to non-www should not be two separate hops. Type the four variants and watch where each lands.
Inspect the home page
The URL Inspection tool tells you whether it is on Google, how it was found and which canonical Google chose. Test live URL shows what Googlebot sees now.

That is two hours, once. Everything after it depends on these being right, and nothing else in the month matters if a noindex is live.

Week two: the listings and the first links

Links are how a new site gets crawled, and listings are how people find you while you have no rankings. Pick the places your buyers actually are rather than everywhere.

The profiles you control: your own accounts, your GitHub, your personal site. Free, immediate, and enough for discovery.
The launch sites that fit the product, one at a time rather than all in a week.
The software directories where buyers compare, which rank for "best X" and are read by assistants.
The communities you already belong to, where a link is genuinely useful rather than dropped.
Any partner or integration whose site lists the tools it works with.

Most of these links carry a nofollow attribute, and that is fine: they exist for the audience and the mention. The link that matters most this week is any one at all, because it is how Google reaches you.

Week three: the two pages buyers search for

Not a blog. Two pages, chosen because people search them with buying intent and because you can write them better than anyone since it is your product.

Page	The search	What it must hold
The job you do	"import csv to postgres", the thing rather than the category	How it works, the limits, the screenshot, the price link.
The alternative to what they use now	"alternatives to [the incumbent]"	An honest account of what the incumbent is good at, and when you are the better fit.

Those two rank slowly and convert well when they do. If you only write two pages in your first month, these are the two, and they are worth more than ten posts about the industry.

Week four: read, decide, do nothing dramatic

Read the Page indexing report
How many URLs are indexed, and what reasons appear under Not indexed. "Discovered, currently not indexed" is normal for a new site: Google knows the URL and has not got to it.
Search your own domain
A site: search shows roughly what Google holds. It is an estimate, not a count, but zero after a month means a block or no links.
Look at impressions, not positions
The first signal of life is impressions on your brand name, then on long specific queries. Positions at this stage are noise.
Write down what you shipped
Dates of the launch, the pages, the links. In three months this list is how you attribute any movement.

What will look alarming and is not

What you see	What it usually means	What to do
Search Console is empty	The property is new and Google has not crawled, or the data lag.	Wait. Check the sitemap was read.
"Discovered, currently not indexed"	Google knows the URL and has not fetched it yet. Normal on a new site.	Get a link to the page. Do not request indexing repeatedly.
Only the home page is indexed	Crawling works outward from the pages Google finds first.	Make sure every page is linked from another page, not only from the sitemap.
No rankings at all	You have no signals yet, and competitive queries take months.	Nothing. Keep publishing and earning links.
Impressions with no clicks	You are appearing far down the results page.	Normal at this stage. Judge titles once you rank in the top ten.
A rival outranks you on your own name	They have signals and you do not, yet.	Get listings and mentions using your exact product name.

The one thing that is a real problem: a month in, a site: search returns nothing and URL Inspection says the page is not on Google with a block as the reason. That is a technical fault, not patience.

What month two should look like

Two more pages, chosen from the questions your first users actually asked.
One more link earned rather than listed: a mention, a partner page, a community answer that keeps being read.
A first read of the Performance report queries, which tell you what Google thinks your pages are about.
No redesign, no migration, no URL changes. Changing the structure now makes everything unattributable.

The rhythm from here is small and regular: a couple of pages a month, a link or two, and a half hour every week reading what changed. That beats any month of frantic work.

Questions

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