How to Submit a URL to Google (3 Methods That Still Work)

To submit a URL to Google, inspect it with the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console and click Request indexing. To submit a whole website, submit an XML sitemap, and link every page from pages Google already crawls. These are the methods that still work: Google retired its public submission form in 2018 and its sitemap ping URL in 2023. None of them makes Google index a page; they tell Google a URL exists and ask it to crawl.

Submission is the first step of how to get your website to show up on Google. Whether the page is then indexed, and where it ranks, is Google's call.

What happened to Google's submit URL form

Google used to have a public form where anyone could submit any URL, with no proof that they owned the site. It dropped the form in July 2018 and pointed site owners to Search Console and sitemaps instead (Google Webmasters, July 25, 2018).

The last anonymous channel went next. In June 2023, Google announced that the sitemaps ping endpoint would stop working six months later and return a 404, because the vast majority of pings led to spam (Sitemaps ping endpoint is going away). As of October 2026, a request to https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=… returns 404. Code that still calls it does no harm and nothing useful (see the sitemap ping deprecation). What's left has one thing in common: every method goes through a site you control.

Three ways to submit a URL to Google

Use all three. Google's recrawl guide names the first two: URL Inspection for a few URLs, a sitemap for large numbers.

Method 1: Request indexing in Google Search Console

This is how to submit a URL to Google Search Console, one page at a time.

1. Add and verify your site. Search Console is free. A Domain property is verified with a DNS record; a URL-prefix property also accepts an HTML file, an HTML tag and a few other methods. Leave the record or file in place, or you can lose verification (Verify your site ownership).
2. Inspect the URL. Paste the full URL into the inspection bar (Inspect any URL) at the top of any Search Console screen. It must be in the property you have open.
3. Read the verdict. URL is on Google means the page is indexed and eligible to appear. URL is not on Google comes with a reason; Page is not indexed: URL is unknown to Google means Google hasn't seen the URL before, which is what submitting it addresses.
4. Test the live page (optional). If Test live URL finds the page non-indexable, you can't request indexing for it until you fix the cause.
5. Click Request indexing. If the page passes a quick check for immediate indexing errors, it goes into Google's indexing queue.

The rules, from the URL Inspection tool help and the recrawl guide:

• Only an owner or full user of the property can request indexing, and only for URLs they manage.
• There's a daily limit on requests. Google doesn't publish the number.
• Requesting the same URL again won't get it crawled any faster.
• Indexing typically takes a day or so but can take much longer, and isn't guaranteed. The recrawl guide puts crawling at a few days to a few weeks.

Keep requests for pages where timing matters: a launch page, a rewrite, a page you removed a noindex from. Request indexing covers the limit in detail. There's no API for this step: the Search Console API covers search analytics, sitemaps, sites and URL Inspection, which only reads a URL's status.

Method 2: Submit your website to Google with a sitemap

To submit your site to Google rather than one page, submit an XML sitemap listing the canonical URLs you want crawled. One file holds up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed; larger sites split them across files listed in a sitemap index (Build and submit a sitemap). There are three ways to hand it to Google.

In the Sitemaps report

Open Sitemaps in Search Console, paste the sitemap URL into Add a new sitemap and click Submit. Google should fetch it right away. The Sitemaps report help says this needs owner permissions, and suggests robots.txt if you don't have them.

In robots.txt

Add a Sitemap: line with the sitemap's full URL anywhere in the file; you can list several. Google finds it the next time it crawls your robots.txt (Build and submit a sitemap).

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

With the Search Console API

sitemaps.submit is a PUT with no request body and an OAuth token with the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/webmasters scope. siteUrl is the property as Search Console names it (sc-domain:example.com for a Domain property), and feedpath is the sitemap URL; URL-encode both in the path. Success returns an empty body.

curl -s -X PUT \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Length: 0" \
  "https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/sc-domain%3Aexample.com/sitemaps/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fsitemap.xml"

Sites with an RSS or Atom feed can also announce changes through WebSub, which Google's sitemap guide says reaches Google.

What a submitted sitemap does

Google calls a submitted sitemap “merely a hint”. A Success status means Google loaded and processed the file without errors and queued its URLs for crawling; the Sitemaps report help adds that there's no guarantee a URL discovered in a sitemap has been or will be crawled or indexed. You don't need to resubmit after each new page: Google recrawls a submitted sitemap periodically, on its own schedule. Keep lastmod accurate instead, since Google only uses it when it is consistently and verifiably accurate (Build and submit a sitemap). How to submit a sitemap to Google walks through the report and its statuses.

Method 3: Link to the page from pages Google already crawls

Google primarily finds pages through links from pages it has already crawled (SEO Starter Guide), and says every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, as an <a> element with an href (crawlable links). An <a> with only an onclick handler, or a <span> with an href, isn't a link Google can reliably follow.

When you publish, link the new page from pages that are already indexed: the homepage, the blog or docs index, related articles. Links from other sites help a new domain: Google lists a site that no other site links to among the common reasons it misses one (Get your website on Google). More in internal linking for indexing.

How to submit a URL to Google without an account

There's no anonymous form left: Request indexing, the Sitemaps report and the API all need a Google account with access to a verified property. You don't need one to be in Google, though. You don't have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google's results (About Search Console), and Google says you usually don't need to do anything except post your site on the web (Get your website on Google). Without an account, the Sitemap: line in robots.txt and links still work.

On a hosted platform, check what it already does: the recrawl guide says that in most cases the platform submits new content to search engines automatically. Either way, Google says it can take a few weeks to notice a new site.

Why you can't submit a URL on a site you don't own

Every channel Google still offers checks that you control the site:

• URL Inspection works only on URLs in the current property. For other sites, Google points to non-owner tests such as the Rich Results Test, which check a page without submitting it (URL Inspection tool help).
• Request indexing can't be used for URLs you don't manage (recrawl guide).
• Sitemaps can list URLs from several domains only if you've verified every one of them in Search Console, or if each site's own robots.txt references its sitemap (cross-site submission).
• Verification exists so that only a real site owner gets owner permissions, because owners can see sensitive data and affect how the site appears on Google (Verify your site ownership).

The open form and the anonymous ping both let anyone submit any URL, and Google closed both. For a page that belongs to someone else, link to it from one of your pages if it deserves the link, or ask the owner to request indexing for it. Getting third-party pages that link to you indexed is a different job, the one a backlink indexer is built for.

What submitting a URL doesn't do

Submission is discovery plus a crawl request. Google doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index or serve a page, and doesn't accept payment to crawl a site more often (How Google Search works). Indexing is Google's decision: a URL reported as Crawled - currently not indexed was fetched and passed over, and the Page indexing report help says there's no need to resubmit it.

Two shortcuts don't apply. The Indexing API can only be used for pages with JobPosting or a BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject; submissions go through spam detection, and abuse can get access revoked (Indexing API quickstart). Sending other pages through it is outside Google's documented use; see the Google Indexing API. IndexNow doesn't reach Google either: as of October 2026, Google isn't on indexnow.org's list of participating engines. For timing, see how long it takes Google to index a page.

How IndexCyborg submits your URLs

IndexCyborg reads your sitemaps (Sitemap: lines in robots.txt, and /sitemap.xml) and rescans them every 24 hours by default, so new pages are picked up without you listing them. With Search Console connected, it inspects each URL with the URL Inspection API, new pages straight away within Google's 2,000 inspections per property per day, and stores Google's status word for word. Once you host an IndexNow key file, it notifies new and changed URLs to the engines that take IndexNow.

Its Chrome extension clicks Request indexing in your own Search Console session, at most 10 pages per property per rolling 24 hours, known-unindexed pages first, skipping noindex, blocked, redirected, duplicate and non-200 pages, and not repeating a page within 14 days. You can also queue named URLs with the REST API or the MCP tool request_google_indexing. Nothing is submitted for a site whose ownership you haven't verified, and a requested URL is queued for crawling, not indexed. More on the features page.

Frequently asked questions