How to Submit a Sitemap to Google and Other Search Engines?

Sitemap submit is the process of submitting a sitemap containing URLs that a website needs to be indexed to Search Engine Crawlers. After the Sitemap submits process, the Search Engine will scan all the URLs in Sitemap and put them into the crawl list. Assuming that a “recrawl” request has been made for each URL, it starts the crawl process. After a while, crawling, rendering, and indexing of web pages are finished. Then, in the related queries, the contents of the website are ranked according to the authority of the domain and the quality of the content (according to thousands of ranking factors and millions of algorithms).

You have two options in the Google Search Console:

  • Use URL Inspection Tool
  • Submit sitemap

Without Proceeding, you should know that to submit a sitemap to Google, you need to have a membership to the Google Search Console and also a verified property in it.

If you wonder what is a sitemap and how to prepare a sitemap for faster crawling and indexing process, you can read our guidelines.

Other related guidelines for SEO and Sitemaps:

  1. What is an Image Sitemap?
  2. What is a News Sitemap?
  3. What is an HTML Sitemap?

Use URL Inspection Tool

The ULR Inspection Tool is ideal if you have created individual landing pages or revised existing ones.

  • Sign in to the Search Console.
  • Select the appropriate property.
  • Click on “URL check” in the left navigation.
  • Enter the URL of the landing page you have optimized into the search bar and confirm with ENTER.
  • The data is now called up live from the Google index.
  • If you get the message “URL is on Google”, you do not need to do anything else.
  • If this is not the case, click on “Apply for indexing”. There is now a live query for the indexability of the URL. This can take a minute or two.
  • A pop-up then appears with the note “Indexation requested”.
  • You follow these steps for each of your optimized URLs.
  • If you have a large number of URLs, it may be easier to re-crawl the entire page, i.e. to re-submit the sitemap.

Note: Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool is not for mainly requesting indexing. The usage limit of requests via the URL Inspection Tool is 100 a day. If you call Googlebot more than necessary, it will affect your crawl frequency and crawl order in Google Search Engine. I recommend you use the URL Inspection Tool only for “inspecting URLs” instead of “Indexing URLs”.

Extension of the URL Inspection Tool

New features have recently been implemented in the URL Inspection Tool. So you can find this button at the top right:

If you click on this, the URL you entered will be tested live by the Google Crawler. This can take a minute or two. The right navigation then changes as follows:

By clicking on “SHOW TESTED PAGE” you will get this extended information about your URL clearly displayed in three tabs:

  • The loaded HTML source code
  • A screenshot of your URL
  • More information: HTTP status code, page resources, messages from the JavaScript console

This makes troubleshooting much easier for you, because you can see at a glance how Google displays your URL.

Submit Google Sitemap

If you have made a completely new website or made major changes to your existing website, it is often easier to submit the sitemap from scratch. Say to request a complete crawl / recrawl of your website.

  • Sign in to the Search Console.
  • Select the appropriate property.
  • Click on “Sitemaps” in the left navigation.
  • Enter the URL of your sitemap in the search slot  Add a new sitemap” and click  Submit “. The file path of your sitemap could, for example, be as follows: https://www.yourdomain.de/sitemap.xml
  • In the table below “Submitted Sitemaps,” you can now see your submitted sitemap and the status “Successful”.
  • If errors occur, you will be shown to them and you will get tips on how to fix them.

You have now successfully applied to have your website indexed by Google. Now it’s time to see how Google ranks your website and how the rankings develop.

Last Thoughts on Sitemap Submitting

Because Googlebot constantly registers all your old and new pages and all updates through the sitemap, they are immediately visible and effective in the index. Without a sitemap, you would have to wait for the crawler to “come by” by chance. Depending on the internal and external links, this can take a long time. Time in which you could already generate website visitors from the organic search results through a good ranking.

Resubmitting a sitemap also will create a crawl request for all of the web sites. In some cases, creating a crawl request for some sections of the web site also can be useful. Increasing the crawl frequency and demand can usually increase the rankings. But, this shouldn’t be used as a manipulation tool. Thanks to Log Analysis and Crawl Profile of a web site, a Holistic SEO can understand easily when to resubmit a web site for a recrawl request.

For now, our Sitemap Submitting Guideline has some missing points. In time, we will complete these missing points.

Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR
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How to Submit a Sitemap to Google and Other Search Engines?

by Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR time to read: 4 min
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