What Does It Mean to Have Google Index My Website?

There are over 1.5 billion websites worldwide, and 200 million are active. Hearing this might make you wonder how you can stand out from the crowd.

While it might seem far-fetched, it doesn’t have to be! Read this guide on Google Indexing and how it can help your site today.

What Is Google Indexing?

Indexing on Google is similar to a library. Instead of books, it has a list of all the web pages that Google knows about. Then, Google visits your site and checks for updates. Think of it as your own little librarian!

To see how your site shows up, head to Google and type in: site:mywebsite.com. Use the Google Search Console to place more indexing results.

Google has bots (crawlers) – the non creepy kind – that gather information from site to site. Then, they index the information which is used to sort through the database. When someone performs a search, this will allow websites to pop up to respond to their statement or question.

Indexing for My Website

Now that you know about Google Indexing, its time we talk about using it for your website.

We recommend you first start in the Google Search Console. Paste the URL you’d like Google to index.

Click “request indexing.” Whenever you add a new page or post, you can do this method. Just when you thought you knew it all!

We recommend this for Google to find all updated content fast.

Set Your Preferred Domain

When setting a preferred domain, it allows users to find your site without inputting www first. Who doesn’t love short cuts?

Simply tell Google that they’re both your site with and without www. Without this, it might begin indexing the same content under different URLs.

Head to the Google Search Console. Paste both URLs, including HTTP and HTTPS.

After adding all versions, click the gear icon and site settings. This allows you to tell Google which version to recognize.

We recommend heading to the Index Status Report to check your index status. This shows how many URLs it has indexed over a year.

Then, index statuses let you know if it’s finding your pages. Lastly, head to the advanced section to see how many pages have been blocked. This tells you if any of your pages are blocking them accidentally.

Booyah! Just like that you are now ready for the internal links.

Use Internal Links

Google indexing benefits include free traffic! Much of the traffic to your site will be organic (free) through search engine optimization. And they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch! Plus its organic (ok, not Trader Joes organic, but still a good kind of organic)?!

To help this, use internal links on your pages and posts. Choose one of your top pages to include internal links, and update it over time.

Google is more likely to crawl these pages more often than others. Ensure that your page has valuable information for your visitors to keep the bounce rate low.

The bounce rate is when a visitor doesn’t engage with your page and leaves. Just think of the last time you went to a friend’s party and it was lame…”Come on Stacey let’s bounce.” It’s the same principle.

With internal links and understanding the Google index a bit more, you can now minimize that as much as possible.

Better Understanding Google Index

We put this guide together to better help you understand Google Index and how to get started. Take your time going through these tips to ensure you’re set up for the crawlers!

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