Leslies Blogger: How to Get Your WordPress Site on Google

This is a tutorial for the video answers to top WordPress questions series that we have been publishing on this site to help users get started with WordPress.

If you’re just launching a new WordPress site, and want Google to start crawling it, there are generally only a couple things that need to be done.

First, make sure that you aren’t preventing Google from crawling and indexing your site.

The robots.txt file can set a command to prevent indexing. Check out the robots.txt file in the root of your site.

Another place to check is in the Reading Settings in WordPress.

To get there, go to Settings, then Reading. Be sure that “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” in unchecked.

Some hosts that auto-install WordPress will check that box during setup, so it’s up to you to manually uncheck it when you are ready for traffic.

If you do have to uncheck it, make sure to click on the Save Changes button.

Next, you can quickly check to see if your site is already indexed in Google.

To check, visit google.com, and in the search box type… site:your-domain.com

If the results say something like “Your search did not match any documents”, then follow the steps below.

However, if pages and links do show up, you are already indexed. Keep adding content to your site, and get links from other sites.

Moving along… to get Google to crawl and index your site:

Watch along in the video where I include another video that covers verifying your site in Google’s Search Console, and submitting a sitemap.

Also in the video, and below in the written instructions, you can follow along for requesting Google to index your site.

First though, be sure that you have a Google Account, such as a YouTube or Gmail account.

The approach in the video uses the JetPack plugin for verification, as well as for the creation of the XML Sitemap.

How to connect your WordPress site to your WordPress.com account using JetPack. (video only)
How to add your site to Google Search Console. (video only)
How to add your Sitemap to Google Search Console. (video only)
And finally, how to request that Google crawl your site, and index its pages within the search results.

Login to Google Search Console.
Click on the name or thumbnail of the preferred version of your web site.
From the left side, click on Crawl, then click on Fetch as Google.
Click the Fetch button.
When complete, click on the Request Indexing button.
Click the I’m Not a Robot checkbox.
Choose the option: Crawl this URL and its direct links.
Click the Go button.
Check back tomorrow or the next day by doing a search in Google for… site:your-domain.com