Introduction
When going live with a new site and you're looking to get indexed by Google, the best starting point is to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.
Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site's presence in Google Search results.
Submitting Sitemap
Google provides a guide on Submitting your Sitemap to Google which is a great starting point.
You should index either /sitemap.xml or if you're using multiple sitemaps, add /sitemap_index.xml.
Deprecation of Sitemap Pinging
In January 2024, Google deprecated the "ping" endpoint (e.g., http://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=...).
You should no longer use this method to notify Google of updates. Instead, rely on:
- robots.txt reference: Ensure your
robots.txtcontains theSitemap: ...line (Nuxt Sitemap does this automatically). - Google Search Console: Submit the sitemap once, and Google will crawl it periodically.
- lastmod: Keep your
lastmoddates accurate so Google knows when to recrawl specific URLs.
Requesting Indexing
It's important to know that submitting your sitemap does not guarantee that all your pages will be indexed and that it may take some time for Google to crawl and index your pages.
To speed up the process, you can use the URL Inspection Tool to request indexing of a specific URL.
In some cases you may want to expedite the indexing process, for this, you can try out my free open-source tool Request Indexing.
Sitemap Error
When submitting a sitemap for the first time you may get see "Error". This is because Google previously crawled your site for a sitemap and found nothing.
When encountering this it's best to wait a few days and see if the error resolves itself. If not, you can try resubmitting the sitemap or making a GitHub Issue.