How to get your website on Google: what actually gets a site found

Google works in three stages: crawling, indexing, serving. This is how your page gets from your editor to a search result.

• Crawling: Googlebot discovers URLs from links, sitemaps and past crawls. It fetches HTML, then renders JavaScript with an evergreen Chromium in a second wave.
• Indexing: Google analyses the page, understands the topic and media, groups duplicates, picks a canonical, and stores it. Not every crawled URL is indexed.
• Serving: for a query, ranking systems order results by relevance, quality, usability and context. The page may appear with features around it.

There is no fee and no submission. A public page that is linked from a known page is found. A sitemap and Search Console speed discovery. Bing takes URLs through IndexNow, Google does not.

1. 1

   Verify Search Console for your domain

   Use the domain property so subdomains and protocols are covered. DNS verification is quickest for a full domain. Search Console shows nothing until verified and crawled. Its data lags about two days and includes up to 16 months once Google has it.

2. 2

   Ship and submit a sitemap

   At yourproduct.com/sitemap.xml or /sitemap-index.xml. List only canonical 200 URLs you want indexed. In Search Console, open Sitemaps and submit its URL. This helps discovery, not ranking.

3. 3

   Get one real link to any new section

   Place a link from somewhere Google already knows. A personal blog, your company LinkedIn profile, a partner’s blog post, your GitHub repo README, your Product Hunt launch, or a mention in a community. One followed link to your home page or /blog is enough to get the crawler started.

Example: you launch yourproduct.com. You add a footer link to /blog from the home page. You publish /blog/first-post. You add a link to your site in your GitHub profile. You submit /sitemap.xml in Search Console. That is enough to get crawled.

Keep robots.txt open. At /robots.txt, allow crawling of the sections you want found. Remove any staging Disallow. Keep HTTPS on. Avoid login walls on public pages.

Search Console’s URL Inspection has a Request indexing button. It asks Google to recrawl one URL. The quota is small per day. Use it for a handful of new or changed pages, not for a whole site.

1. 1

   Open URL Inspection

   Paste your full URL, like https://yourproduct.com/guides/getting-started. Wait for the status.

2. 2

   Fix blockers first

   Ensure it returns 200, is not noindexed, is allowed in robots.txt, and appears in your sitemap. Link to it from your navigation or a known page.

3. 3

   Request indexing sparingly

   Click Request indexing once. It may still take days. Repeated clicks do not speed it up.

• Discovery and indexing: from days to a few weeks for a new site. There is no promise.
• Ranking on competitive queries: months. A 2017 Google video said four months to a year for SEO work to show its benefit.
• There is no confirmed sandbox. New sites often rank for their own name first, then long-tail queries.

Plan your launch content accordingly. Publish a useful /guides/getting-started. Write an About page people can cite. Share links where you already have reach. Expect a trickle, not a flood, in week one.

1. 1

   Search with site:

   Type site:yourproduct.com in Google. If you see your pages, you are indexed. If you see nothing, keep going.

2. 2

   Open Search Console’s Page indexing report

   Look for Indexed pages and reasons for Excluded pages. “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” is fine if intentional. It is a problem only when the canonical is wrong.

3. 3

   Inspect a URL

   Use URL Inspection on one page. If Google has the URL on Google, you are indexed. If Not indexed, read the reason and fix it.

4. 4

   Check robots and meta robots

   At /robots.txt, ensure no Disallow rules for public paths. In the HTML head, ensure there is no meta robots noindex, and no X-Robots-Tag: noindex in headers.

5. 5

   Confirm your sitemap

   Open /sitemap.xml in a browser. It should list clean canonical URLs that return 200. No redirects or noindex here.

6. 6

   Check for links in and within your site

   Use Search Console’s Links report to see external links. Inside your site, ensure your new pages are linked from the home page or a hub. Avoid orphan pages.

If you are indexed but do not see traffic, that is normal for a week one site. If you are indexed and see impressions but few clicks, improve your titles and meta descriptions. If you have no impressions, you are likely not ranking for any query yet or the queries are omitted as rare.

• A staging noindex shipped to production: remove the meta robots noindex and any X-Robots-Tag noindex. Re-deploy and request indexing for the home page.
• robots.txt blocks: delete Disallow: / for the whole site. Allow Googlebot to fetch the public paths.
• Password or IP allowlist: drop protection for public pages. Google cannot log in.
• Thin or duplicate pages: write a unique page or canonicalise to one URL. For /blog/how-it-works and /how-it-works, pick one and redirect the other.
• Wrong canonicals: the page points to a different URL and Google agrees, so it is excluded. Fix the canonical to self if this URL is the main one.
• No links at all: add a link from your navigation and from a page Google knows. Without links, discovery can stall.
• Soft 404s and template cruft: empty category pages and boilerplate can be crawled but not indexed. Remove or improve them.

Example fix: your /pricing page shows as Duplicate without user-selected canonical. You add a rel=canonical to https://yourproduct.com/pricing, remove parameters from internal links, and 301 redirect /pricing/?ref=nav to /pricing. Reinspect the clean URL.

Being on Google is not the same as ranking on page one. Getting indexed is table stakes. Ranking needs content that matches intent, trust signals and links.

• Match search intent: for “project timeline template”, ship a template page, not a company pitch. Use the query in the title naturally.
• Write helpful, original content: show expertise and first-hand experience. Explain your process. Include clear steps and examples.
• Get links and mentions: links remain one signal among many. Earn them with useful pages and relationships. Do not buy links.
• Cover on-page basics: one canonical, a unique title under about 60 characters, a meta description, headings that read well, descriptive alt text.
• Improve page experience: pass Core Web Vitals where you can. Aim for LCP at or under 2.5 seconds, CLS at or under 0.1, INP near 200 ms.
• Use internal linking: link new guides from your /guides hub and from related posts. Put your best pages one to two clicks from home.

Example: yourproduct.com/guides/getting-started ranks low, off the first pages. You add a crisp title, expand the walkthrough with screenshots, and link it from /guides and /blog/first-post. A partner cites it. Over weeks, its impressions climb and the average position improves.

• Your owned profiles: add your site to your GitHub, LinkedIn, X bio and YouTube channel.
• Community posts: write a build log on Indie Hackers or a shipping note on a relevant subreddit. Include one link to your home page or /blog.
• Small launch posts: publish on your personal blog and ask a friend to link it. If you plan a Product Hunt launch, your coming soon page can carry a link.
• Partners and customers: ask for a mention on their integrations or “built with” pages.
• Your open source repo: link from README.md to /docs or /guides.

Keep it natural. One followed link is enough to get crawled. For more links over time, focus on useful pages that people cite, like a comparison guide or a template library.

Use Search Console to see Google’s view. Use your analytics for sessions and signups. Expect data to lag by about two days in Search Console.

• To check rankings: use the Performance report. Filter by page or query. Read average position as a mean across impressions. Verify with an incognito search in the right country.
• To check traffic: read Search Console for Google clicks. Use analytics for all channels. To estimate a rival, use a third-party suite, knowing it is an estimate.
• To read impressions: an impression counts when your link appears on a loaded results page. For web search it counts even if the user did not scroll to it.
• To diagnose a drop: compare dates in Performance. Check Google’s Search Status Dashboard for core or spam updates on those dates. Check Manual actions and Security issues. Check your deploys: redirects, noindex, canonicals, robots. Check seasonality against the same period a year before. Finally, check the results page for new features or a new rival page.

Example: clicks fell on 12 August. You see a core update on that week. Your /pricing kept its position but /blog/compare-x-vs-y slipped. You expand it with clearer differences, add product screenshots, and cite sources. You also improve Core Web Vitals and tidy internal links. You watch the 28 days after against the 28 before.