How to Submit, Check, and Maximize Content Indexing with Google Search Console

Knowing whether your new content is indexed by Google is significant from an SEO perspective. It is especially crucial if your content requires immediacy, such as news articles.

Sitemap's Importance

A Sitemap clearly indicates which content on your site was updated and when. Google refers to it to check the update status of pages and registers or updates the index accordingly.

The method for generating a Sitemap varies depending on the CMS or blogging tool you use. Generally, the tool automatically updates the Sitemap, but you can also create it manually (this site's Sitemap is actually created manually). If you haven't created a Sitemap yet, please use the tool you are using to generate one.

Submitting a Sitemap to Google Search Console

Submitting a Sitemap to Google Search Console (GSC) is a basic yet crucial step in website SEO. A Sitemap is an XML-formatted file that lists all the important URLs on your site, serving as a "map" for Google's crawlers.

By submitting this map to Google through GSC, the crawlers can accurately and quickly grasp the overall structure of your site. This has the effect of accelerating the rapid discovery and indexing by the search engine of newly created or updated pages, especially those that have a deep hierarchy or few internal links.

The specific submission procedure is very simple. After logging into GSC, go to the "Sitemaps" section in the left-hand menu, enter and submit the URL of your Sitemap (e.g., sitemap.xml). After submission, you can check the status on GSC and track the processing status and any errors.

Checking if Pages Registered in the Sitemap are Indexed in Google Search Console

Checking whether the pages registered in your Sitemap are properly indexed in Google Search Console (GSC) is essential for an SEO health check.

To check, first open the "Sitemaps" report in the left-hand menu of GSC. By clicking on the submitted Sitemap name, you can see the "Discovered pages" by Google among the URLs contained in that Sitemap. A high number here indicates that Google has grasped your site structure.

For more detailed indexing status, refer to the "Index > Pages" report (formerly the Coverage report). Check the total number of indexed pages in the "Valid" section, and if any important pages listed in your Sitemap are not indexed (e.g., in the "Excluded" section), investigate the reason and make improvements to increase your visibility in search results.

Request Indexing

If you find that an important page from your Sitemap is not indexed (Crawled – currently not indexed, or Discovered - currently not indexed) in Google Search Console (GSC), you should request indexing directly.

Use the URL inspection tool at the top of GSC by entering the specific URL. If the page is not indexed, click the "REQUEST INDEXING" link. This notifies Google to crawl the page immediately, helping your new or updated content appear in search results faster.

Example of checking indexing status for recently updated pages in Google Search Console

Conclusion

To maximize your website's SEO effectiveness, submit your Sitemap to Google Search Console (GSC) and regularly check whether your content is correctly indexed by Google (i.e., whether it is eligible to appear in search results). This is a crucial task for checking if your pages are recognized by the search engine.

Furthermore, GA4 Report Stream (Professional) reports everyday on whether the most recent 5 URLs that were recently added or updated, out of all URLs registered in your Sitemap, are indexed by Google.