If you've recently created a website, don't worry if you can't find it on Google yet. It may take from a couple of days to a couple of weeks for your website pages to be discovered, crawled, and indexed in search engines.
Your website's rank in the Google search results depends on many various factors: the quality of your website content, loading speed, accessibility, and more.
Checking if a Website Is on Google
To see which of your website pages are currently on Google, in the search bar, insert site: and your domain name, like this:
site:example.com
This way, you'll see the total number of search results related to your website and the exact pages that are indexed:
Click on the ellipsis ⋮ button next to each result to see more information about it:
Learn more: View web pages cached in Google Search Results 💡
Getting a Website on Google
Here are some proven recommendations to get your website up and running on the most popular search engines like Google 👇
Create Valuable Content
Having authentic, high-quality content on your website is crucial for increasing traffic and improving your search ranking. Therefore, make sure to address the specific needs of your target audience and steer clear of mistakes.
Content-related suggestions:
To rank your site with specific keywords, include them in your website's content
Remember to add links where necessary
Try to get backlinks — links from other sites to yours — which are one of the most heavily weighted Google ranking factors; incoming links to your website from high-authority domains improve your credibility, bring in traffic, and improve your search ranking
Learn more: How to Use Heading Tags for SEO 💡
Add Meta Titles and Descriptions
Meta titles and descriptions help search engines understand the content of a webpage and are displayed in the search results:
Learn more: How to Add Meta Titles and Descriptions 💡
Double-Check URLs
It's important that the URLs are neat. Make sure to check all the URLs of your website pages, including product pages and blog posts.
Learn more: How to Change the Page URL 💡
Take Care of the Visuals
SEO isn’t just about written content. It's also about the visuals:
Upload a favicon
Add link preview images to your pages
Add alternative text to images
Learn more: Responsive Web Design and Image Size 💡
Specify Your Website's Language
The HTML lang attribute specifies the language of your website and makes it more accessible:
Search engines use the language attribute to return language-specific search results
Screen reading tools use this attribute to recognize the language and provide the correct accent and pronunciation while reading website texts
Learn more: How to Add a Language Attribute to a Website
Use Google Search Console
Create a Google Search Console account. It is a free service that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in the search results.
To improve your local ranking on Google, you can also create a Google Business account. Providing and updating business information in Google Business can help enhance your presence online.
Things to Avoid
This advice applies to any search engine, be it Google, Bing, or Yahoo. When creating your website, avoid the following:
Duplicate content
Low-quality content
Little or no content
Broken links
Learn more: