How to ensure Google knows your website exists 21 January 2021  |  Cate

One of the most important steps to take once your new online shop is up and running is to make sure Google knows it exists. The quickest way to achieve this is by connecting your online shop to Google Search Console and submitting your sitemap - a list of all the pages on your site.

By connecting your website to Search Console, you will be able to monitor certain aspects of your website such as search queries, links to your site, mobile usability, index status and much more. It's a free service that only you, as the site owner or authorized user, can access for your website, so it's well worth spending a little time exploring everything.

Please note: If you are moving your site over from another platform, it is advisable not to make any changes to Google Search Console until 48 hours after you've gone live to ensure Google can access the new site.

Verifying your website

The first thing you need to do is verify your site. You can do this by following the steps below:

Step 1 - Create a Google Search Console account

Go to https://search.google.com/search-console and log in with a Google login. If you don't already have a Google account, such as Gmail or YouTube, then you will need to create one.

Step 2 - Add a property

In the URL prefix section type in your domain name. This must be the full URL of our domain name, so this must include the https:// and the www. at the beginning . For example - https://www.mydomain.co.uk.

Step 3 - Verify your website

Click the Continue button and make a note of the HTML verification file name shown in the Download the file line. It will look similar to one highlighted above. Don't download the file or continue on further.

Step 4 - Add verification file to website

Go to your Bluepark admin panel and type the file name into Settings  > Integrations > Google > Google Site Verification File field and save.

Step 5 - Check the verification

In Google Search Console, click on the Verify button. It will then confirm the verification has been successful.

Submitting your sitemap

Once you've verified your site, you can submit your sitemap. This will allow Google to crawl all of the pages on your website via their URLs . Once this process has run through, Google will be able to start indexing all of your pages.

• Step 1 - In the left hand menu click on Sitemaps.
• Step 2 - Type in sitemap.xml after your domain name.
• Step 3 - Click on the Submit button.

Once your sitemap has been submitted, Google will automatically crawl it on a regular basis to make sure it keeps up with any content changes or new pages added on your site. This means there is no reason to resubmit your sitemap every time you make a change.

In the Coverage section of the Search Console, you will gradually start to see the number of web pages on your site that have been submitted to Google and the number they have indexed.

Generally the indexed number is less than the number submitted. This can be for a number of reasons, such as paginated pages of a category controlled through canonical tags, the content of the page not being relevant, or is not considered quality content, or even violates Google's guidelines.

To find out more about how to make sure your pages are indexed, please read Google's guidelines.