I’m going to go ahead and preface this by saying that the minute you start a website, you will not have that website in Google. Sometimes it takes days or even weeks for Google and other search engines to find your site and no, that doesn’t mean you need to email Google and tell them about it. There are, however, plenty of things you *can* do to make Google not only find your website but also classify it properly and make it higher in the Google rankings.
Make your website visible!
First, and most importantly, have content. Content is the blood of your website. If it comes to a halt, chances are your website will die. The more lively your site is, the more visible it becomes.
Having inbound links can also help a lot. That doesn’t mean you should just spam comment sections with your website’s URL, but if you naturally work it into various other sites then it works.
There are also some settings you need to check that can actually block search engines from finding it entirely. In your Admin settings click Reading, then Search Engine Visibility and make sure that the setting for
Discourage search engines from indexing this site isn’t checked.
How will I know if my website has been cataloged?
This is a very easy thing to check.
- Type in “site:yourdomain.com“, replacing “yourdomain” with your website’s actual domain name.
- That’s all!
I did say it was easy, after all. If your website appears in the search results, then it has been cataloged. If not, you should check the settings displayed above and wait a couple weeks.