How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines (e.g Google)

Last updated: June 22, 2019

Submitting your website to search engines is the first step to getting free SEO traffic.

And here’s the good news:

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the exact step-by-step process to submit your website to search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Quick Navigation

1. Do you need to submit your website to search engines?
2. Submit your website to Google
3. Submit your website to Bing & Yahoo
4. Check if your website is indexed
5. What to do if your website isn’t indexed
6. FAQs about submitting your website to search engines
7. Submission doesn’t equal rankings

Do you need to submit your website to search engines?

In most cases, you won’t need to submit your website to search engines, such as Google and Bing. That’s because they are sophisticated enough to crawl and index the web efficiently at scale without manual submission.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of crawling I recommend you watch this video:

Or if you prefer to read, you can read Google’s explanation of crawling and indexing in their guide: “How Google Search Works”.

Why I recommend submitting your website to search engines anyway

I just said you don’t need to submit your website to search engines.

And now you’re probably wondering:

“Why should I bother submitting to search engines then?”

Hear me out. Yes, search engines are sophisticated to crawl and index your website without any manual help.

But it’s super easy to submit to search engines and here are a few reasons why submitting to search engines can help:

1. You’ve got nothing to lose and a lot to gain

Search engines are smart, but they don’t always get it right. Submitting your website to them can make sure that they at least visit your website.

2. It can speed up the process

If your website is brand new or doesn’t have many backlinks, the frequency that search engines visit your website won’t be very high.

Submitting your site manually to search engines will speed up the process and get you indexed faster than sitting back and waiting for them to come to you.

3. You can gather some valuable data insights

Search engines, such as Google and Bing, have tools that you can use to submit your website. These tools will provide useful information about the pages that you submit, such as the status of the URLs you’ve submitted.

So, if you don’t submit to search engines, you’re missing out on some pretty useful data to help optimise your website.

What you will need to submit your website to search engines

First, you will need access to a Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools account.

If you’ve never submitted your website to a search engine before there are several things you will need access to:

1. Your website’s domain name account
2. Your website’s hosting account
3. You’re website’s backend (file editor, FTP or Cpanel)

Ok, let’s dive right into how to submit your website to search engines.

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How to submit your website to Google

There are two ways to submit your website to Google, which are both super easy.

1. Submit individual URLs for indexing with the URL Inspection Tool.
2. Submit hundreds of thousands of URLs using XML sitemap submission.

I recommend you do both.

Submit to your website to Google with the URL inspection tool

To submit your website to Google with the URL Inspection Tool is as easy as one, two, three.

1. Access Google Search Console

First, you need to log into or sign up for Google Search Console.

Note: if you don’t have a Google Search Console account you can follow this guide to get your website on Search Console.

2. Paste the URL you want to submit to Google in the search box

Paste the full URL you want to submit to Google into the search box at the top of your screen.

For example, I would paste in https://www.tomdonohoe.com.au/blog/submit-website-to-search-engines/ the full URL of this post to get it indexed.

Google will begin to retrieve data from its index.

3. Press the ‘Request Indexing’ button

You now have the option to submit the URL to Google, to do so press ‘request indexing’ button.

Now you’ve successfully submitted a URL to Google for indexing!

Submit to your website to Google with XML sitemaps

An XML sitemap is a file that provides a list of URLs for search engines, such as Google, to crawl. Sitemaps are the most effective way to submit your website to Google because there is no limit of the number of URLs you can submit.

If you don’t have an XML sitemap to submit to Google, then I recommend you follow my guide: XML Sitemaps for SEO: The Ultimate Guide.

To submit your XML sitemap to Google, you need to log in to Google Search Console then follow these steps.

1. Go to the sitemaps tab

Navigate to the sitemaps tab in Google Search Console. You can find it on the right sidebar in the Index section below the Coverage Report.

2. Enter your sitemap URL path and click submit

Now you’re in the Sitemaps tab, paste the URL path of your sitemap in the box and click submit.

Note: it’s crucial you only put in the path of the sitemap and not the full URL. For example, the URL for my XML sitemap is https://www.tomdonohoe.com.au/sitemap_index.xml and the path to put in Google Search Console is /sitemap_index.xml.

3. You’re done

It is that easy you’ve now submitted your website to Google via an XML sitemap.

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How to submit your website to Bing and Yahoo

Submitting your website to Bing and Yahoo is easy too! You do them both at the same time. In 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo. So, by submitting your website to Bing, you can show on Yahoo too.

Just like Google, there are two ways to submit your website to Bing and Yahoo.

Use the Submit URLs tool

Bing’s submit URL tool is pretty cool because you can submit multiple URLs at once to Bing. Here’s what they say it does:

The Submit URLs feature allows you to submit a URL from your website directly into the Bing index.

Here’s how you use it.

1. Access Bing Webmaster Tools

First, you need to log into or sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools.

Note: if you don’t have a Bing Webmaster Tools account you can follow this guide to get your website on Bing Webmaster Tools.

2. Navigate to the Submit URL tab

In the sidebar, there is a tab called ‘Submit URLs’ you need to click on that to be able to submit to Bing.

3. Enter the URLs you want to submit

Finally, you need to add one URL per line that you want to submit to Bing and Yahoo. Once you’ve added the URL, hit submit, and you’re done!

Submit your website to Bing and Yahoo with XML sitemaps

Just like Google, you can submit to Bing and Yahoo with XML sitemaps.

Again, if you don’t have an XML sitemap, then I recommend you follow my guide: XML Sitemaps for SEO: The Ultimate Guide.

To submit your XML sitemap to Bing and Yahoo, you need to log in to Bing Webmaster Tools then follow these steps.

1. Go to the sitemaps section on your dashboard

Navigate to the sitemaps. It’s on your dashboard in Bing Webmaster Tools and click the ‘Submit’ button.

2. Enter your sitemap URL and click submit

Now you need to add your full sitemap URL in the box and click submit.

Note: it’s essential you only put in the full URL of the sitemap and not the path URL (like on Google). For example, the URL of my XML sitemap is https://www.tomdonohoe.com.au/sitemap_index.xml, and I need to add the full URL https://www.tomdonohoe.com.au/sitemap_index.xml to Bing Webmaster Tools.

3. You’re done

It is that easy you’ve now submitted your website to Bing and Yahoo via an XML sitemap.

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How to check if your website is indexed

Once you’ve submitted your website to search engines, you’ll want to know if they index your site. There are two ways to check this, and they are both easy.

Use the site search operator

By typing site:https://www.example.com into Google or Bing, you will be able to see if your website is indexed.

Note: be sure you swap out example.com for your website’s domain name.

The site search operator will show you how many pages are indexed on from your website. You can check if a specific URL is indexed by performing the said search but using the full URL.

For example, site:tomdonohoe.com.au/blog/on-page-seo/.

Use Google Search Console Coverage report

You can use Google Search Console’s Coverage report to check if URLs that you’ve submitted to Google are indexed or excluded.

To see indexed URLs follow these steps:

1. Go to the coverage report in Google Search Console
2. Click on the ‘Valid’ tab
3. Then click on ‘Submitted and indexed’

You will then see the list of URLs that are in Google’s index:

To see URLs that are not in Google’s index, follow these steps:

1. Go to the coverage report in Google Search Console
2. Click on the ‘Excluded’ tab
3. Then click on one of the error messages

You will then see the list of URLs that are in Google’s index:

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What to do if your website isn’t indexed

You might be wondering: “what should I do if my websites aren’t indexed?” Well, there is always a reason why Google, Bing or Yahoo haven’t indexed your page, and you can debug it.

Here are the most common reasons why you’re not getting indexed:

It can take time

To get a page indexed search engines need to crawl the page. Even when you’ve submitted a website to search engines, you need to wait for them to crawl the page.

If a day or so has gone by after submission and you’re still not indexed it is likely because of one of two reasons I’ll cover now.

Your page is marked noindex

If your page has a noindex meta tag, then search engines won’t index the page because you’ve instructed them not to.

You can use Google’s URL Inspection Tool to check if the page you want to be indexed has the meta noindex tag on it.

Search for the URL in Google Search Console via URL Inspection Tool; if the page is marked noindex, you will see the error: “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag”.

Fix: the fix is simple, remove the noindex tag from the page and resubmit the URL to search engines.

Your page is blocked in the robots.txt file

If your robots.txt file is blocking search engines from crawling the page you want to be index, search engines won’t visit it and index the page.

Fix: navigate to https://www.example.com/robots.txt and check if your file is blocking search engines from visiting the page you want to be indexed. Make sure you swap out https://www.example.com with your domain name.

You can use this excellent tool create by Merkle to test robots.txt directives.

If a rule in your robots.txt file is preventing the page you need to be indexed from getting crawled then remove it and resubmit to search engines.

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FAQs about submitting your website to search engines

Working in the SEO space I’ve been asked lost of questions about submitting websites to search engines, so here are several common questions:

What are the best search engines to submit my website to?

I only recommend submitting your website to Google because they hold most of the market share. It’s okay to submit to Bing and Yahoo also, but it might not be worth your time.

Do I need to pay to get my website onto Google, Bing or Yahoo?

No. Submitting your site and getting indexed by all the major search engines is entirely free.

Which tools can I use to see if my website is on Google, Bing or Yahoo?

The best tools to use are Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, which I’ve demonstrated in the guide. However, there are paid tools on the market that let you track how your website is ranking in search engines.

The best-paid tools are:

• Ahrefs
• SEMRush
• Moz Pro

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Submitting to search engines doesn’t guarantee rankings

I have one final note to leave you with before the end of the guide.

Unfortunately, submitting your website to search engines and getting indexed doesn’t guarantee rankings. And the harsh reality is that pages beyond the first page of Google get very little organic traffic.

There are many strategies to help you rank at the top of Google, and you’re in the right place to get them. I have a bunch of guides on my blog that focus on ranking your website on Google:

• How to rank higher on Google
• The Complete SEO checklist
• On-page SEO: a beginner guide

I would start with those three guides and go from there.

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Now it’s your turn

There is everything you need to know about submitting your website to search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.