How to submit your website to Google

Do you need to submit your site at all?

Google finds most websites on its own by following links. Submitting is still worth doing for a new website, a website with few links pointing to it, or one that just moved, because it tells Google where your pages are and gives you Search Console reports showing whether they were indexed.

There is no paid or priority submission. Everything below is free and happens in Google Search Console.

1. Add your website to Search Console

1. Sign in to Google Search Console with your Google account.
2. Open the property selector and choose Add property.
3. Pick Domain or URL prefix, enter your website and continue.

2. Verify that you own it

Google shows the verification options for the property type you picked. Common choices:

• DNS record: add the TXT record Google shows at your domain registrar or DNS provider, such as Cloudflare. It can take a while to propagate. This is the only option for a Domain property.
• HTML file: upload the file Google gives you to your website’s root folder.
• HTML tag: paste a meta tag into your home page’s head section. Most CMSs and SEO plugins have a field for it.
• Google Analytics or Tag Manager: works if the same Google account already manages that tracking code on the site.

3. Submit your sitemap

A sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want in Google. Most website builders and CMSs create one automatically, usually at /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml.

1. In Search Console, open Indexing → Sitemaps.
2. Enter your sitemap’s URL under Add a new sitemap and choose Submit.
3. Check that the status says Success. If it says Couldn’t fetch, open the sitemap URL in your browser to confirm it loads.

Our sitemap guide covers finding your sitemap, the statuses you might see and the robots.txt alternative.

• How to submit a sitemap to Google
• Check your sitemap for errorsFree HyperGSC tool, no sign-in required.

4. Request indexing for your most important pages

1. Paste a page’s full URL into the search bar at the top of Search Console.
2. Wait for URL Inspection to load. A new page usually shows URL is not on Google.
3. Choose Request indexing. Google runs a quick live test and adds the URL to its crawl queue.

You need to be an owner or full user to request indexing. There is a quota, and requesting the same URL again doesn’t make it crawl faster. Use it for a handful of key pages and let the sitemap cover the rest.

5. Check whether it worked

Google says crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and requesting a crawl does not guarantee indexing. Check progress in these places:

• URL Inspection: inspect the page again. URL is on Google means it’s indexed and eligible to appear.
• Indexing → Pages: shows how many of your URLs are indexed, and the reasons the others aren’t.
• Performance: impressions start to appear once indexed pages show up in search results.

Keep an eye on indexing from your AI assistant

HyperGSC connects Search Console to ChatGPT, Claude, Codex or Cursor with read-only access. It can’t submit sitemaps or request indexing for you, but it can inspect URLs and report what Google has indexed, so you can ask instead of checking each page by hand.

Use HyperGSC to inspect https://example.com/new-page and tell me whether it is indexed, when Google last crawled it, and which canonical Google selected.