It is no secret that effective SEO is one of the best methods to drive traffic to a website. Indexed websites enjoy greater brand awareness and higher conversion rates.
Website owners often wonder how long it will take for their pages to be indexed on search engines.
Google’s Senior Analyst, John Mueller, recently addressed this concern, explaining that indexing times can vary, taking anywhere from as little as a few hours to as long as several weeks.
If a new page contains content that is well-optimized, it is usually crawled and indexed within a week.
Mueller further explained that while there is no way to know exactly when a new page will be indexed – website owners can do a few things to accelerate the process and get indexed faster.
Here are some strategies to ensure your new webpage gets shown by search engines soon after it is published:
Create New Internal Links
Internal links are links from within your website to your website.
When you create a new page on your site, you should simultaneously create internal links leading to your new page.
Multiple internal links will help search engines understand that your new page is important and potentially expedite the indexing process.
Manage Your URLs
Over time, as websites create new content, pages can become redundant and have similar URLs.
The more accurate your URLs to the content of your pages, the faster search engines will crawl your site.
Going back and making sure URLs reflect your content accurately makes it easier for search engines to analyze them.
Prevent Server Overload
Your website server should be strong enough to handle a large number of requests.
If your server overloads quickly and slows down your website as search engines try to crawl it, you will automatically hinder the process.
You can prevent server overload by:
- Using multiple servers (or a backup server)
- Using multiple computers with a load balancer
- Expanding cache methods
- Controlling network traffic through firewalls
- Using efficient and updated web server programs
Optimize Your Website for Users
If you create your website content with a focus on the user, you will naturally create a website that is quickly indexed by search engines.
Useful user-oriented content drives traffic and increases website browsing times. Consequently, it is easy for search engines to judge if a website is providing value to visitors.
While there is no guarantee that a new webpage will be indexed by Google, your best chance is to create a website that is fast, clean, efficient, and user-focused.
