Making sure your site is indexed
Published · Last updated
In October 2026, getting indexed means telling five separate systems about your site: your sitemap, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, IndexNow and Brave. Publishing a page does not notify any of them, and being crawled is not the same as being indexed.
Crawled vs. indexed
A crawler fetching your page means it visited. Indexed means the search engine stored it and can return it. Many pages get visited and never stored.
Why it matters
AI assistants lean on search indexes to find and verify sources. A page that is not in the index is rarely cited.
Quick check
Search site:yourdomain.com in Google and Bing and compare the result count with the number of pages you meant to publish. In Google Search Console, the Pages report lists what is indexed and what was left out, with a reason for each.
Each channel does a different job
- Sitemap: the list of pages you want found.
- Google Search Console: where you submit that sitemap and see Google's verdict.
- Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow: tell Bing and several other engines when pages change.
- Brave: has its own index and its own submission form (see the Brave guide).
What this does not tell you
Why a specific page was left out, which channel to fix first, and how to confirm a fix worked. Reports are snapshots, and acting on a stale one wastes weeks.