• Overview
• Setting up Google Search Console
• Submitting a sitemap to Google
• Asking Google to recrawl your URLs (optional)

Overview

When updating or when first creating your site, content that you entered may not immediately update on Google or it may not exist there yet. You will need to use a few tools to prompt Google to crawl your site and update their search engine results:

Step 1: Setting up Google Search Console

You will first need to create an account with Google Search Console and link your site to this account.

• WiscWeb - Adding Google Services to your UW Theme WordPress site

Step 2: Submitting sitemap to Google

Use the following instructions to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. This will prompt Google to crawl your site.

• WiscWeb - Adding a Sitemap to Google Search Console 

If your site is new and you just need the content to appear in Google Search results, you should be all set (step 3 not required).

Step 3: Asking Google to re-crawl/re-index your URLs (optional)

This step is meant for users who have added new content since they launched their site and want to update what is appearing in Google search results for a specific page. Please make sure you have already performed steps 1 and 2 before beginning this step.

If you would like Google to be aware of recent changes to a page, you will need to ask them to re-index it using these steps:

1. Login to your Google Search Console account 
2. Choose URL Inspection on the left 
3. Enter the URL that you’d like Google to re-index 
4. Select Request indexing 
5. Google will run a test on the URL. If no issues are found, the page will be queued for re-indexing. If any issues are found, you should fix them and then re-submit.
   Note: Submitting an indexing request does not mean that Google will instantly refresh the content. This may take several days.

Troubleshooting

• Re-crawling a site or page may take anywhere from a day to a few weeks. This is based on Google’s schedule and there isn’t much that can be done to influence this timeline.
  
  
• You can only ask Google to re-index a few URLs at once. There is a quota for this process, so we recommend only submitting a request for pages that absolutely need to be re-indexed.
  
  
• Submitting multiple re-indexing requests for the same URL will not result in Google processing it any faster.
  
  
• Google values high quality, user-friendly, and relevant content. Therefore, you will benefit from making sure your pages are easy to follow and up-to-date. Consider re-working your content to align with SEO strategies if you are consistently having issues with your Google search results. WiscWeb - SEO tips for Google