Two of the most common questions relating to search engine submission I get asked are: “How do I get my website listed on search engines?” and “What search engines do I need to submit my website to”.
How do I get my website listed on search engines?
The fact is, if your website has been online for awhile, the main search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo have probably already found and indexed your website. Go to each of these now and enter your full website address into the search box. If you see your website popup in the results, your site is already listed with these search engines.
As well as being able to directly submit your website to these search engines, they also use something called bots/webcrawlers. These bots are computers that scan the web continually. They go from link to link around the web and index the relevant pages that they find which they believe would be useful to a searcher.
If you do not find your website on these search engines, they either haven’t found your site yet, or they have but not listed it for some reason.
Whether your site is showing in the search results or not, you should still follow the below process for Google and Bing. Not only will the processes below submit your website to Google, Bing and Yahoo, it will also give you tools to help you understand how search engines see your website, and how you can improve where your site appears within the search results pages (Serps).
I keep an updated CSV of global search engines where you can submit your website for indexing for free.
Search Engine Submission List (54 downloads )Add your website to Google.
Adding your website to Google is Free and quite straight forward.
- Navigate to https://search.google.com
- Sign in or create a new Google Account.
- Enter your URL into the URL Prefix Box
- Follow the on screen instructions to verify that you own the domain.
- Once you have verified the domain click ‘Site Maps’.
- Enter your sitemap address. This is usually https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
- Google will then read your site map which is a list of pages on your website. Once it has done this you will usually begin to see your website on Google Results pages within a few days.
If Google is unable to read your sitemap, it is most likely because your site doesn’t have one. This is not a problem, contact your hosting provider or Google how to add a Sitemap to your website. The process will vary depending on what platform your website is built on.
Add your website to Bing
These days both Bing and Yahoo use the same database to find its results. This means you only have to submit your website once to tackle both search engines.
- Navigate to https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster
- Sign in or create a new Microsoft Account.
- Enter your website url and follow the onscreen steps to verify you own the domain.
- Navigate to “Site Maps” and enter your sitemap URL as above.
- Once Bing has scanned your sitemap you should begin to appear on their results pages within a few days.
What search engines should I submit my website to?
I typically answer this with a question. “What search engines do you use?” This is usually met with Google, or sometimes Bing or Yahoo. However there are many others: browser specific such as Brave, Opera, DuckDuck Go to name just a few, or search engines such as DogPile, AOL, Ask, Jayde, Yandex, WhatUSeek and many more.
So, what ever your website, ensure you submit it do Google and Bing/Yahoo as a minimum, but you should also look at submitting to other search engines that are popular in your target country.
I keep an updated CSV of global search engines where you can submit your website for indexing for free.
Search Engine Submission List (54 downloads )What search engines use Google?
What search engines are powered by Bing?
Any questions or queries, please comment below.