Best Practices on getting your website indexed by Google

What does it mean to have to your website INDEXED by Google?

Website indexing is a process that search engines use to understand the function / purpose of your website and each page on your website. Indexing helps Google find your website - add it to it's index - associate each page with searched topics and then drive the right audience to your website.

FIRST STEP: WHAT TO DO when first STARTING out on your website:

Even if you haven’t connected Google Search Console to your website for Google to start indexing, the Google crawlers will happen upon your site and if not completed (Ie. if it has placeholder Lorem Ipsum/Latin text, if copy is not speaking to the intention of your site, empty pages, broken links etc), they will go ahead and start indexing which will not serve you in the long run.

- SITEMAP. This adds or removes your pages from the SiteMap.xml that helps search engines to index or find your page. When you sign up with ShinePages you get your own domain ie. nameofyourbusiness.shinepages.com. This is great as you get to test your site whilst building with a live URL until you connect your professional domain. All the pages on your site (those that came with the Template and any new pages that you add) will have the "Add to SiteMap" option automatically checked. 

Whilst you’re still in the building stage of your site, it’s important that you UNCHECK the SiteMap on each page of your website. This will avoid Google Indexing redirect issues in future.

Click on the gear icon next to the page listed under "Pages and Popups "(and other pages and funnel pages that are not ready) - then click on SEO info and UNCHECK “Add to sitemap”. 

- DOMAIN CONNECTION. DON’T connect your professional domain to your website until your website is ready.

- GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE. DON'T connect GSC until your website is ready and your domain is connected.

SECOND STEP: WHAT TO DO when your website is completed and READY TO GO LIVE:

1) SITEMAP CONNECT the sitemap on each pages that ARE complete. 

Click on the gear icon next to the page listed under "Pages and Popups "(and other pages and funnel pages that are ready) - then click on SEO info and CHECK “Add to sitemap”. As per above screenshot. 

See this article on instructions for this: Page SEO

2) REMOVE FROM SITEMAP Any pages or functions (ie: Store/blog/template pages) that you are NOT planning to use right away.

"HIDE" by "removing from sitemap" under the SEO Info Tab of each Page's Settings area. OR delete any pages on your website you don't need.

See this article: How to "Hide" a Page

3) DOMAIN CONNECTION: GO AHEAD and connect your Business Domain to your website. See this article on instructions for this: Connect a Domain

4) GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE: GO AHEAD and connect your website to Google Search Console (GSC). See this article on instructions for this: How to add Google Search Console

5) GOOGLE ANALYTICS: CONNECT your site to Google Analytics (GA). See this article on instructions for this: How to add Google Analytics to your site

Google Search Console is vitally important to set up. However there are a lot of aspects involved especially with a NEW WEBSITE and having recently connected a domain and connected to GSC.

It can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks for Google to crawl a new website.

To start, while Google tries to index all the pages of all the websites that have registered their sites to be indexed, fact is... they don’t actually do a complete audit in the beginning. The Google crawlers skim through and do the best they can with all the information they have to sort through. In understanding this, all we can do is analyse the information they supply us within our Google Search Console Indexing stats, which can be deceiving in their accuracy at best.

Here are a few common factors to take into account that can affect the way that Google indexes a site:

1) When transferring / migrating:

- From another website host - make sure you redirect within the Registrar settings that you purchased your domain from.

- From another domain name - make sure you redirect within the Registrar settings that you purchased your domain from to your new domain.

(see below related article: Maintaining your SEO ranking after moving to ShinePages).

2) Avoid”Soft 404” signals. Make sure your pages don’t include anything “Not Found” or “Not Available” in your content.

3) Use INTERNAL LINKING, this allows the Google crawlers to easily navigate and index the important pages on your site. Make sure you don’t have any broken links.

4) We recommend internal linking (as above), except when linking from other pages in your website to the Homepage. To keep your “HOMEPAGE” clearly indexed (being the page you want to be searchable above all others) is to make sure any links ie. Button links, text links, image links from other pages on your site and in your funnel pages that you are linking to your homepage set as “EXTERNAL LINK” then /

PLEASE NOTE this does NOT apply to your header MENU and your FOOTER links as these are global and wouldn’t affect Indexing.

5) SEO SEO SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

- Make sure there is no duplication on your pages and especially in your metadata and description in Page SEO (in your settings), and that each page has wording related to that page specifically.

- Use the right keywords in H1 to H6 tags that are specific to what your business is about. Please see this article: Header Tags - H1, H2, H3, etc.

So, these are some best practices to get you started, as GSC indexing is a process and a journey, as you progress with your site, remember to head back into your profile in GSC and you’ll see changes made every time the Google Crawlers have updated. You can also request a “URL INSPECTION" and should you see any index issues - click on “VALIDATE FIX” and take it from there.

IMPORTANT TIP TO SEE WHICH OF YOUR PAGES ARE INDEXED! Shortcut to test to see which of your pages Google Search Console has indexed and serving - enter site: before your url ie. site:yourdomain.com

For more information on Google Indexing https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing

(Please note that Google can change its instructions / interface at any time, and ShinePages is not responsible for the accuracy of the information on this page).