“Crawling” is Google’s fancy word for the process of discovering and analyzing your website’s content. A website won’t be visible to searches unless Google has crawled it.
So, before you dive into the SEO nitty-gritty, you must first “convince” Google to crawl your site so it will start appearing in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Read on as we guide you on how to get Google to crawl your website.
What is Google's “crawling” process?
When you build a website, it won’t automatically appear in search engine results. Google must know first that your web pages exist.
Google employs a web crawler software called Googlebot to discover and analyze existing pages and content on the Internet, such as images, videos, or documents. This process of Google’s content discovery and examination is known as crawling.
If Google already knows a website, it can easily crawl its new pages. Otherwise, Googlebot has to hop along links from different pages to discover the newly published pages.
Once Google crawls your website, it will try to understand the textual and media content of your pages.
All content and information that Google analyzes will be stored in Google’s indexing system called Caffeine, a massive database of all web pages that the search engine recognizes. When someone performs a search, Google will extract relevant content from the index as a response to the user's query.
In short, if your website is on Google’s index, it will most likely appear in SERPs. And this is only possible if Google crawls or discovers your website.
How to get Google to crawl your website
Googlebot is a hardworking web crawler working 24/7 to look for new pages. Theoretically, the bot can possibly crawl your website without you doing anything. The only problem is the waiting game—with trillions of web pages created, it might take weeks or months before Googlebot visits your content.
However, you can take action to help Google recognize your website faster.
In this section, we’ll explore some easy methods to get Google to crawl your site.
1. Use Google Search Console’s (GSC) Inspection Tool
GSC is an all-around free tool provided by Google to help people manage and maintain their websites. But before you can use GSC, you must verify first that you’re the owner of the website.
After verification, simply follow the steps below:
Step 1: Log in to GSC.
Step 2: In the sidebar menu on the left of the GSC, click “URL Inspection”.
The URL Inspection tool provides a rapid method to check the indexing status of a URL.
Step 3: Enter the URL of the website into the tool’s search field. GSC will automatically search for the website.
Step 4: Click “Test Live URL” to inspect the URL. If GSC tells you that the URL is not yet indexed, press “Request Indexing”.
This method basically “convinces” Googlebot to visit and crawl the URL, but remember, this is just a request and not a guarantee that Google will crawl it.
2. Submit a XML Sitemap
A XML Sitemap details your website’s structure. Treat it as your website’s blueprint that tells Google all important pages and content and how they’re linked and related. Since “crawling” is all about your website and Google’s “get-to-know” phase, submitting a sitemap can expedite the bot's analysis of your website structure and content.
Here’s how to submit a sitemap:
Step 1: Find or create your sitemap. If you’re using WordPress, any SEO plugin can automatically generate an XML sitemap for you. Other content management systems (CMS) like Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify also automatically create a sitemap that you can access: https://www.[yourdomain].com/sitemap.xml
Related | Index Wix websites
Alternatively, and in case it is correctly added, you can also access https://www.[yourdomain].com/robots.txt) to find your sitemap.
Step 2: Go to Google Search Console and log in.
Step 3: At the left of the GSC, click Sitemaps under the Index submenu.
Step 4: In the “Add a new sitemap” field, enter the URL of your sitemap and hit Submit:
This process will invite Googlebot to view your sitemap and start crawling your content.
3. Ask for help from Third-Party crawling and indexing tools
You can manually encourage Google to crawl and index your website using the methods discussed above. However, it can be tedious and time-consuming if you have to deal with multiple pages.
Some online indexing tools can help your website’s URL be crawled and indexed automatically. For instance, INDEXED.pro can review your website and look for pages that Google has not yet indexed. This tool can perform over 1000 indexing requests per day and regularly monitors the pages’ indexing status.
How to ask Google to recrawl a web page?
If you update or make changes to a web page, you can ask Google to “recrawl” it so it can be re-indexed in the database.
To do this, you can use GSC’s Inspection tool and enter the updated page URL. Afterward, click “Request Indexing”:
Note that resubmitting a page URL won’t guarantee that it will be crawled faster. In fact, Google sets a quota for submitting page URLs, so only request for recrawl if you’ve made necessary updates or changes.
How to know if Google has crawled my website?
The fastest way to check if Google has crawled (and indexed) your website is to type “site:[yourURL]” into Google’s search bar. If your pages appear in SERPs, then you’re fine.
Of course, don’t expect Google to crawl and inspect your website immediately after you follow our suggestions. It might still take a few days before the almighty bot pays a visit to your content.
You can also use GSC’s Inspection tool. Just enter your page’s URL and go to the “Page Indexing” section. Here, you can see information such as the date and time the page was last crawled by Googlebot.
Another way is to look at your website’s Google Analytics dashboard. If it shows that organic traffic goes to your website, then your pages are likely crawled and indexed by Google.
Your website’s log files can also indicate when Googlebot crawled your website. A log file is a text file that contains a chronological detailing of every action performed on your site, including Googlebot’s crawling. You can request your log files from your site’s hosting provider. Unfortunately, it’s too technical to understand log files and determine if Googlebot has visited your pages.
If you don't have time to manually check your pages’ crawling and indexing status, you can also use SEO software to monitor them automatically.
Related to this, in large sites it is important to control (as far as possible) the "Crawl Budget".
Start indexing your web pages faster
With INDEXED.pro, our rapid URL indexing tool, there’s no need to request indexing for your pages manually. Let our tools do the job on autopilot by connecting your Google Search Console, choosing an XML sitemap, and inviting service accounts. Get your URLs indexed faster and see excellent results in the next 48 hours.
Interesting read | How to get your WP website indexed
What do you think about these methods for Google to crawl your website?