Every website needs traffic and Google plays a vital rile in bringing free traffic to your website. Since Google holds more than 60% of the search engine market in English speaking countries, it is the great and simple way to drive organic traffic to your site. Google does not allow anonymous site submission and you should have a Search Console or Webmaster Tools account in order to submit your site to Google.
Related: How to site your site to Bing, Baidu and Yandex.
Why You Should Submit Your Site to Google?
In theory, there are no needs to submit your site to Google as Google will automatically discover the site over period of time. Also, submitting website does not have any impact on the search results ranking. However, we strongly recommend to submit due to the following reasons.
- Auto discovery needs lot of time which may lead to loss in traffic.
- Submitting site needs you to verify the ownership which is a good practice to indicate that the site is monitored by the webmaster or owner.
- You can submit Sitemap so that Google can daily crawl the modified and new content easily.
- Search Console will help you to understand the traffic details and crawl errors so that you can fine-tune the site for better performance.
How to Submit Your Site to Google?
The latest Search Console account has a complete different interface compared to the old account. However, the process remains same that you basically needs to verify the ownership of your website to use the free tools.
Adding a Property
Your website is a property and you need to add all your sites to your account for monitoring. There are multiple methods you can follow to add your site:
- Domain verification with DNS
- URL prefix verification
We explain each methods in detail.
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1. Domain Verification
- Go to Google Search Console site and login with your Google account. You can use your existing Gmail id for logging in or create a new email account.
- If you have websites previously added, then you will see one of the site is selected on the left side. If this is your first website, then click on the property search box and then choose “+Add Property” option.
Google will show you two options for adding your site like below – Domain and URL prefix. Enter your domain name without http and www and click on “Continue” button.
On next step, you will get the DNS verification code like below:
- Copy the DNS verification code.
- Go to your hosting provider and login to your domain account.
- Enter the TXT record in your DNS zone editor of your domain.
- Go back to Search Console and click on “Verify” button to confirm the ownership process.
Alternatively, click on “Any DNS Provider” dropdown and check whether your domain name registrar is listed. If yes, select the name and follow the process to link your account. DNS verification is highly recommend due to the fact you can verify all subdomains and URLs with https / http. Otherwise, you need to add individual subdomains separately.
Remember, DNS modifications may take up to few days to propagate. Therefore, you should wait for few days and verify later. If you have domain and hosting with two different providers, then you should add the TXT record on your hosting provider’s DNS zone editor.
2. URL Prefix Method
Though DNS method is an easy way, you should have access to DNS editor for adding the entry. In most cases, you may not have DNS access especially when you are only managing the site that uses CDN or uses separate companies for hosting and domain. In this case, you can use URL prefix method. However, you should add each URL with http, https, www and non-www versions of your site.
- After selecting “+Add Property” option, enter the complete URL of your site under “URL prefix” option and click “Continue” button.
On the next screen, you will see multiple options to verify your site.
2.1. HTML File Upload
The first and recommended method by Google is to verify your domain using HTML file. You can download the HTML file and upload under the root of your site. For example, you should be able to access the HTML file using the URL like “https://www.yoursite.com/xxxx.html”. You should use File Manager or FTP to upload the HTML file on your site. After uploading and confirming you can access the file on the browser, go back to Search Console and verify the ownership.
2.2. HTML Tag
This is a popular verification method that you can copy the meta tag and paste on the header section of your website’s homepage.
2.3. Google Analytics
We recommend using this method as you can use single Analytics tracking code for verifying Search Console and Analytics accounts. You need to first add Google Analytics code on your site. When you enter URL in “URL prefix” box and click enter, Google will automatically verify your ownership with Analytics code.
2.4. Google Tag Manager
This is similar to Analytics verification with the difference that you should have verified your site with Google Tag Manager code.
2.5. Domain Name Provider
This is similar to DNS domain verification and you can choose your domain name registrar from the dropdown to follow the linking process. You can checkout more on how to link GoDaddy domain in Google Search Console.
How to Verify Your Site is Indexed?
After successful submission of your site, Google will show you the features in the Search Console account for your website. The first step you need to do is to submit your XML Sitemap. Generally it will take a up to a week time for Google to crawl your site and index the pages in the database.
Google will index your site and display in the search results pages when someone searches query related to your content. You can check in the Google Search by entering “site:yoursitename.com” to ensure whether any pages on your site is indexed or not.
Monitor Indexing and Crawling
Google Search Console allows you to check the crawling errors and number of pages indexed from your site under “Coverage” section. In addition, you can go to “Performance” section to find out the clicks, impression and keyword details.
If the pages are indexed but not showing top in the search results pages, then you should focus on improving the quality of your content to show up in the search results.
Removing Site from Search Console
You can remove the site from Search Console at any point later. Simply select the property from the dropdown and choose “Remove Property” button. Confirm the “Remove Property” prompt to delete the site from the account.
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