How to Submit Your Website to Search Engines – Guide for Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex
You probably have a website developed and ready at hand with some quality content. You want it to rank high. So, how will you add it to the various search engines?
Indexation is a vital point for SEO experts. No matter how well your content quality is, not submitting or indexing it correctly on the search engine may affect your SEO negatively.
Different search engines have specific ways to index content. Knowing these methods is borderline mandatory for an owner or moderator of a site or content.
We have explained how to submit websites to search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo in this article.
Table of Contents
Do You Need Backend Access to Submit a Page or Website to the Search Engine?
In almost all cases, you will not require the backend access to a website or page for the submission. However, it is still better to have the access as there are moments when you need it.
For example-
- You may need the backend access if the site doesn’t have a robot.txt file. This file helps Google crawlers or other good bots to index your pages and give them various instructions.
- There is no sitemap to the website. It is somewhat similar to the previous point. If the robot.txt file is a guide, then the sitemap is a map to take the crawlers to the right places.
Why Is It Important to Submit Your Site to the Search Engines?
Many wonder whether submitting your site or pages to the search engine is important. After all, the search engines will find your website anyway in time. So, why bother doing it?
Well, there are various reasons we recommend doing it.
- It helps Google crawlers index your site and crawl every page faster. Otherwise, it may take time for the former to discover the latter. You don’t want to give your competitors the upper hand.
- When indexing your site to Google manually, you can add the sitemap, robot.txt files, and other instructions to help the crawlers rank the pages with relevant keywords.
Meanwhile, if the crawlers do it themselves, the result may not meet your expectations. For example, if there are two identical contents, you can specify which one to crawl.
However, leaving it to the crawlers will result in them choosing one at random.
- Manually submitting your site will assure you that your site is indexed. You don’t want to keep guessing whether or when the crawlers will find your site.
Preparing Your Website for Submitting to Search Engines
You should prepare the domain before submitting your website to various search engines. There are a few steps that you must finish-
- Creating a sitemap
- Uploading your sitemap to the site’s robot.txt file
- Optimizing the robot.txt file
Let’s show you the steps next.
Creating Your Sitemap Index
Unless your backend team has already made a sitemap index for the website, you should create one. It will help the crawlers know which pages to crawl or prioritize.
It can also help with generative engine optimization (GEO) and Image Search Optimization (Image SEO).
So, what is a sitemap? It is somewhat as it sounds. The sitemap is a file containing the structure (map) of the website with details about each page.
A sitemap can be an XML file, an image, a video, text, hypertext (HTML), or an RSS feed. For site indexing, you will need an XML sitemap.
For most websites, you may need to create a sitemap index and then multiple sitemaps to link them with the former. It is an XML file, so don’t confuse it with an HTML sitemap.
Now, there are three ways to make sitemaps-
- If you are using WordPress, you can use the Yoast SEO plugin. It creates your sitemaps automatically.
Otherwise, you can use different tools, such as Screaming Frog’s XML Sitemap Generator.
- Moreover, if you have access to your website’s backend, coding with languages like Python to create the sitemaps is ideal. It requires ample skill in coding, though.
Using FTP Server to Upload Your Sitemaps
You can use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to upload your sitemaps. You will need FTP server access in that case.
- After creating your sitemaps and their index, connect to your team’s FTP server.
- Afterward, search and locate the public_html directory in the file manager of the cPanel. Open it.
- Upload the sitemaps to the directory.
- Test it by typing your site’s URL and adding the directory file name to the end. If it is a sitemap index, it may have names like sitemap_index.xml. You can find it in the robot.txt file (if your backend team has created it).
Optimizing Your Robots.txt File (Why You Should)
Optimizing your sitemap should already help crawlers crawl your site content. So, why should you optimize your robots.txt file?
It adds higher assurance that search engines will crawl your site quickly and properly. Simply put, it sends the crawlers to your site’s sitemaps. You can add links to your sitemaps in your robot.txt file for that.
- First, enter your robot.txt file.
- Add a link to your sitemap index or sitemap file in the robot.txt file.
Simply doing so may automatically promote Google or Bing to start indexing your site.
It is the right moment to check whether your site shows the Disallow Directives. It will say- ‘Indexed, though blocked by robot.txt.”
If it shows, no search engine will crawl your site! Check out the following video to solve this issue-
Submitting a Website to Google Search Engine
Let’s start with undoubtedly the most popular search engine, Google.
Opening Google Search Console and Verifying Website
You must open a Google Search Console account to submit your website to the Google search engine. The process is simple-
- Go to Google Search Console
- Use your Gmail account to log in to Google if you haven’t already
- Select ‘Domain’ or ‘URL Prefix’ on the page. The second option is to submit only specific pages.
- Verify your ownership of the website. You won’t have to do this if you are using the analytics account.
Note that you can submit multiple websites from the same account.
Submitting Your Sitemap to Google Search Console
There are several ways to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console. Use whichever one is the best for you.
First Method: It is the easiest method. Go to your robot.txt file and add the following text (sitemap directive) inside (the whole line, including the sitemap part)-
Sitemap: https://example.com/my_sitemap.xml
Second Method: This is the standard method.
- Go to Google Search Console and click on the ‘Sitemap’ Tab from the left.
- Copy-paste or type your submit URL in the ‘Add a New Sitemap’ box.
- Click ‘Submit.’
- Check the ‘Submitted Sitemaps’ box below to see if your added sitemap index shows a ‘success’ status.
Third Method: Go to Google Search Console API and request to submit your sitemap following their instructions.
Fourth Method: It is probably the best method.
- Use the Sitemap Reports tool in the Search Console.
- Go to the Search Console Help, and click on ‘Manage Your Sitemap Using the Sitemap Reports’ tab from the right (it may need some scrolling down).
- Then, click on ‘Open Sitemaps Report.’
- You will find the ‘Add a New Sitemap’ box there. Add your sitemap index URL.
(You may use the URL Inspection Tool first to check the page fetch and ensure it is okay. You can find this tool from the tabs on the right in Search Console Help.)
- Click on Submit.
Of course, you won’t see the result immediately as the crawlers will take time to crawl all the pages. However, you will get notified when they do from the Sitemaps Report.
This method will also help you test your URL and notice any errors faster.
If you want to index individual pages, you can use the URL Inspection Tool for that.
Submitting a Website to Bing
When submitting a website to Bing, you must complete almost all the steps above, except for the Google Search Console parts. So, like before-
- Create your sitemap
- Create the robot.txt file, if necessary
- Check if there are any disallow directives (if there are, fix them)
Once you finish these steps, head to Bing Webmaster Tool. It is Bing’s version of Google Search Console. In fact, all search engines have a webmaster tool to index sites and do other activities.
Upload Your Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tool
- Open a Bing account. It is easy as Bing will ask you permission to automatically sync your email accounts or Facebook ID to create a Bing account.
After that, Bing will let you import all your websites indexed on your Google Search Console account. Unlike Search Console, you won’t have to verify your properties this time.
Of course, you can find the option to add your site or pages manually on the right side.
When manually adding, you must make some detectable changes to the site to help Bing verify you own it.
If you have added your sitemap to the Search Console and imported your sites from there to the Bing Webmaster Tool, your sitemaps will also get imported automatically.
Otherwise, you can manually add them from the ‘Sitemap Tool.’
The sitemap tool will let you see various details of your sitemaps, including the error ones.
- Click on ‘Submit Sitemap’ from the upper left. A small floating window will appear.
- Type in or copy-paste your sitemap URL and click on ‘Submit’ to submit the sitemap.
You can download your sitemap list from Bing if you need it.
Another method is to add the sitemap directive in your robot.txt file. We have already shown it earlier.
Submitting a Website to Yahoo
Since the Bing search engine powers Yahoo, you won’t have to submit your sitemaps here. Adding your sitemaps to the Bing Webmaster Tool will automatically index your site or pages to Yahoo.
You can also submit the URL of a specific page to Yahoo Search using the same webmaster tool. Follow these steps-
- Go to your website property in the Bing Webmaster Tool (the website that contains the page)
- Select the ‘URL Submission’ tab from the left.
- Click on ‘Submit URLs.’
- Copy-paste or type in the URLs. You need to list them one URL per line.
- Click on ‘Submit.’
If you own a business, Yahoo has an excellent business directory for it. You can enter your business using their directory site. You can add your website here for higher traffic.
Submitting a Website to DuckDuckGo
Similar to Yahoo, DuckDuckGo also gets its search results from Bing. As a result, your indexed site on the latter makes it appear on the former’s SERPs.
This search engine doesn’t let anyone manually add any sitemap or URL. Instead, they index the sites from other sources (primarily Bing).
Remember when we said that the search engines may eventually find your site even if you don’t submit it? Well, DuckDuckGo kind of does that, too. It has its own crawler named DuckDuckBot.
Note that SEO activities in Bing also influence DuckDuckGo. So, it is ideal to optimize your site for the Bing search engine to improve its SEO on DuckDuckGo and Yahoo.
Checking Whether Your Website Is Indexed on DuckDuckGo
- Go to the DuckDuckGo search engine.
- Search with your domain URL (i.e., yourdomain.net)
- Check the search results and see if your website appears. If it does, your site is indexed.
If your site doesn’t appear, it is not a big issue since it takes time for the crawlers to index your site to the search engine. So, wait a bit before checking again.
Submitting a Website to Yandex
Unlike the previous two, you can manually add your sites or pages to the Yandex search engine.
- First, head to Yandex Webmaster.
- Open an account by selecting ‘Add Site’ and verify it.
- Click on ‘Indexing’ from the left side of the screen. Then, select ‘Sitemap Files.’
- Type or copy-paste your sitemap URL into the ‘Add Sitemap File’ box. Click ‘Add.’
Your sitemap will be added to the Yandex queue, which can take up to a couple of weeks for the indexing to finish.
Note that overly long URLs often limit Yandex from indexing a page. As such, you may try making your URLs short. Also, large image files make their indexing progress slow or stop.
Checking Whether Your Site or a Page Is Indexed Using Google Search Console
Yes, you can search your domain or page URL using a search engine to know whether your site or a specific page is indexed on that search engine. However, it isn’t always as reliable.
There is another method you can try. Here are the steps-
- Go to Google Search Console
- Once you select your verified website, you will notice a search bar at the top of any page. It will read- ‘Inspect any URL in (your site).’ Use it to search for specific pages to check if it is indexed.
Here is what it will show if the page is indexed-
Meanwhile, this is what it will show if the page is not indexed-
Other Methods to Improve the Indexing of Your Sites
While the sitemaps and robot.txt files help the search engine bots navigate through your website, you can help them further. Check these points below.
Using Internal Links
Internal links help crawlers go from one content to another on your site and check the relevance of your content. They measure the value of each link, which also helps with your SEO.
Consider the internal links as tunnels that lead to different pages of your site.
Improving Your Link-Building
Link-building is necessary for SEO. It helps with indexing your website, too. For example, suppose you have forgotten to index a specific page to Google.
However, that page got a backlink from another page within or outside your website. Google crawlers can come through that link to your page and index it automatically.