Adding new, exciting content to a website is a thoroughly tried-and-trusted way of getting it noticed more easily online. However, once that fresh content has been created and uploaded, it can take quite a while for it to trickle through to Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
One simple reason why is that Google needs to send crawlers to your website so that the new information there can be downloaded and categorised before being placed in a database. This entire process is known as indexing, and there is no preset length of time that it takes.
Google will definitely index the new webpage at some point, right?
Not necessarily. Google has admitted that it does not crawl every single webpage it comes across. Some pages may be hidden behind a login field, while certain pages may have duplicated others that the search engine has previously crawled.
In January 2021, Google executive John Mueller explained that, though Google strives to index large amounts of content, some pieces could be omitted from indexing if it is thought that it would not be useful for SERPs to bring them to searchers’ notice.
So, what if Google does deem your webpage worthy of indexing?
Let’s assume that a webpage you have published adds genuine value to the site and is indeed picked up by Google for indexing. How long will you realistically have to wait for the indexing magic to happen? Again, Mueller has a detailed and insightful answer.
According to him, it can take Google anywhere from several hours to several weeks to index a webpage. He suspects that the majority of good content is picked up and indexed within about a week, but technical issues with the web can sometimes delay the process.
Is it possible to encourage Google to crawl content more quickly?
The simple answer is yes. Since posting new content to a site has been proven to work for making it more prominent online, it stands to reason that you can heighten this effect by posting a rapid flurry of new content.
This isn’t just a theory, either. Google will automatically assess a website’s crawl demand by estimating how frequently it will be updated.
For example, a news website will likely be determined to have a higher crawl demand than, say, a history website focused mainly on telling the story of the Napoleonic Wars. This is because, with the latter, the information on the site is more ‘set in stone’, being far less likely to change quickly.
What this all basically means for you is that, if you start to refresh and add to your website’s content more often, Google will see good reason to crawl the site more often.
What if you are still waiting for a webpage to be indexed?
If it is taking a suspiciously long time for Google to index a webpage you have published, the culprit could be some technical issue within that page’s code. We have website experts who could investigate the matter for you.
