Manually Request Indexing for Every Squarespace Blog Post
If you’ve visited my blog before then you know that I’ve worked hard to address the little issue we Squarespacers have with getting our blog posts indexed by Google.
Since going down that rabbit hole, I’ve implemented a few key changes that have been working well for me.
In this post, I share with you another tip that I’ve had great success with.
I recommend watching the accompanying video tutorial…it’s short. ↓
Manually Request Indexing
Even though I have all of my posts pushing to Google Search Console, this doesn’t seem to be a guarantee for getting blog posts indexed.
When I publish a blog post, I want it indexed, like soon. So I take a proactive approach and immediately request indexing with GSC as soon as I publish the thing.
These are the steps I take:
Open up the live blog post in your browser
Log into Google Search Console
Copy the URL out of your browser
Paste it where it says “Inspect any URL in “http://www.yourwebsite.com/” and hit enter
It’s going to tell you the page is not on Google
Select ‘Test Live URL’
You’ll probably get all green checks but it might tell you the page has “issues” and that it’s not mobile-friendly, because this also seems to be a thing. You can certainly check it for mobile usability, but usually, this warning is bogus and you can move on to the next step.
Select “Request Indexing”
That’s it!
Check It the Next Day
Every time I’ve done this for myself or for a client, my blog post has been indexed the very next day.
I’m not guaranteeing this will happen for you because there are many variables to getting things to work with Google.
I strongly suggest getting the SEO Space plugin to help you optimize your blog posts. It is so worth it just to have access to Henry Purchase and the SEO Space community. So much value there.
If Google Tells You There’s a No Index Tag
If you get a notification saying your blog post is being blocked by a ‘No Index Tag,’ then you probably haven’t made your blog live.
Go to the setting for your blog and select ‘SEO.’ Make sure your blog isn’t hidden from SEO results.
Sometimes this happens when people are setting up a blog. They don’t want it to be live until it’s ready, so they hide it from SEO results and then forget to make it visible again. Hey, it happens.
This is what Liz had to say about this advice:
"I am rather tech savvy but having to build my own website and have it crawled by Google was above my expertise. Within one hour, Jen replied with my own personal video on how to index my new blog posts. I'm so happy with how fast Jen responded and how thorough (but easy) her instructions were. You saved me hours of time and hundreds of dollars paying a marketing company to do it for me. Thank you so much!" -Liz Crivello, Collected Interiors
How to Quickly Check Your Blog Post for Indexing
It’s easy to check to see if your blog post (or any page of your website) is indexed by Google if you are using the Google Chrome browser, which you should be using if you have a Squarespace website—they get along well with each other.
If you aren’t using the Google Chrome browser, you can do this directly in Google.
In your browser (or in Google search), simply type ‘site’ followed by a colon and your post’s URL, like this:
site:http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog/you-url-slug
If your blog post is indexed, it will show up in the search results. If it’s not, you’ll get a cute little graphic telling you “Sorry…that page isn’t on Google.”
*This technique will work for any page on your website
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