How to Ask Google to Recrawl and Reindex Your Site

Google is doing a great job discovering new websites and content, but sometimes, it’s for your benefit to ask Google to recrawl and reindex a page or your whole website.

There are two ways to do it: the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console for individual pages, and an XML sitemap for many pages or a whole site. In this post, you’ll learn how and when to use each one, what the limits are, and how long reindexing takes.

Single Page or Whole Site: Which Method Should You Use?

The right method depends on how many URLs you want Google to look at again:

• One page or a few pages: Use the Request Indexing button in the URL Inspection tool. It is the fastest way to get a single URL into Google’s crawl queue.
• Many pages or the whole site: Submit (or resubmit) your XML sitemap with the changed pages marked by their last modified date. There is no tool that makes Google recrawl an entire website at once.

It also matters whether the page is new or updated:

• A brand new page: Make sure it is in your sitemap and that at least one page Google already crawls links to it, then request indexing. A page with no internal links is hard for Google to find and may be treated as unimportant.
• An updated page: Google already knows the URL, so requesting indexing is enough to ask for a fresh crawl.

If your site runs on WordPress or a hosted platform, your sitemap is usually updated automatically when you publish, so Google will find new content on its own. Requesting indexing only speeds this up.

How To Ask Google To Reindex a Page

To ask Google to recrawl a new or updated page, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console. You need to be an owner or a full user of the Search Console property to use this feature.

Here are the steps to follow:

• Step 1: Log in to Google Search Console and select your property. If you haven’t verified your site yet, add your website to Google Search Console first.
• Step 2: Paste the full URL of the page into the ‘Inspect any URL’ bar at the top and press ENTER.
• Step 3: Wait for the tool to load the current index data for that page.
• Step 4: Click on the REQUEST INDEXING button.

Google runs a quick live test on the page first. If it passes, the URL is added to the indexing queue and you’ll get a confirmation message. The test result also lets you view the page as Googlebot rendered it, a quick way to check how Google sees your website.

If the live test finds that the page can’t be indexed (for example, it is blocked by robots.txt, has a noindex tag, or returns an error), you won’t be able to request indexing. Fix the problem first, using our guide on how to fix errors in Google Search Console, and then try again.

How To Ask Google To Recrawl Your Whole Website

There is no button that makes Google recrawl a whole website. Requesting indexing for your homepage in the URL Inspection tool only asks Google to recrawl your homepage, not every page on your site.

For many URLs, Google recommends submitting a sitemap instead. Here is how to do it:

• Step 1: Make sure your XML sitemap lists all the pages you want indexed, and that the lastmod date is updated for every page you changed.
• Step 2: In Google Search Console, open the Sitemaps report from the left menu.
• Step 3: Enter your sitemap URL and click SUBMIT. If the sitemap is already there, submit it again so Google knows it has changed.

Our guide on how to submit a sitemap to Google covers each step in detail.

Google will then recrawl the updated pages over the following days and weeks, based on the dates in the sitemap. For your most important pages, you can also request indexing one by one with the URL Inspection tool, within the daily limit.

Google explains both methods in its own documentation on how to ask Google to recrawl your URLs.

Is There a Limit On How Many Times To Request Indexing?

Yes. Google has a daily limit on how many indexing requests you can submit through the URL Inspection tool, but it doesn’t publish the exact number.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Repeating a request doesn’t help. Requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won’t get it crawled any faster.
• Use a sitemap for bulk changes. If you want many pages indexed, a sitemap is the right tool, and it doesn’t count toward this limit.

How Long Does It Take For Google To Reindex My Site?

It depends on the case. According to Google, indexing a page you requested typically takes a day or so, but it can take much longer. For a whole site or a large number of changes, crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

Keep in mind that requesting a crawl does not guarantee that the page will be indexed at all. Google prioritizes content it considers high quality and useful.

You can use the URL Inspection tool and the Page indexing report of Google Search Console to monitor progress.

How often does Google reindex a site on its own? There is no fixed schedule. Google recrawls pages that change often, and pages it considers important, more frequently than pages that rarely change. A news homepage may be crawled several times a day, while an old blog post may be crawled only every few weeks.

Is There a Faster Way to Get Google to Reindex a Page?

Not really. Request Indexing is the fastest option Google gives site owners, and there is no paid or priority version of it. What you can do is make it easy for Google to find and process your changes:

• Link to the page from pages Google already crawls often, like your homepage or popular posts. Internal links are one of the main ways Google discovers new and updated content.
• Keep your sitemap accurate, with correct lastmod dates, so Google can tell which pages have changed.
• Fix indexing problems such as noindex tags, robots.txt blocks, and server errors before you request indexing.

Google’s Indexing API, which some tools promise will get pages indexed instantly, is officially supported only for job posting and livestream video pages, not for regular content.

When Should You Ask Google To Recrawl Your Site?

You do not need to regularly ask Google to recrawl and reindex your website. But there are some cases in which resubmitting your sitemap and requesting indexing for your key pages will get your changes into Google’s index faster. The most common reasons are:

Site-Wide Changes - When you make significant changes to a website that affect all pages. For example, changing your website’s URL structure or migrating from http to https are good reasons to resubmit your sitemap.

Domain Transfer - When changing domains, redirect every old URL to its new address with a 301 redirect, use the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console, and submit the sitemap of the new domain. This helps Google move your pages to the new domain faster.

Re-Branding - You can request a reindex when rebranding your business without necessarily changing domains. In this case, rebranding refers to substantially changing your page titles, site structure, and URLs.

After a Website Redesign - Major site redesigns that involve changing themes, removing or adding JavaScript/HTML code, or substantial changes to menu structure are good reasons to ask Google to recrawl your website.

After a Content Audit - After a thorough content audit, you most probably have many pages that are removed, changed, or redirected, and this is a valid reason to update your sitemap and let Google know instead of waiting for Google crawlers to find out.

Recovering from a Google Penalty (some cases) - When your website is under a Google penalty, the normal course of action is to make the necessary changes and submit a reconsideration request (in case of manual actions) or wait for Google to reassess your site (in case of algorithmic issues).

In some cases, though, asking Google to recrawl the affected pages can speed up the process. For example, if your pages had too many ads above the fold, you can fix the layout and request indexing for your most important pages so Google sees the changes sooner.

Doing so does not guarantee that your rankings will recover immediately, but it can speed up the process.

Recommended Reading: Knowing how search engines work will help you understand how the crawling and indexing process works and why asking Google for a recrawl may benefit you.

When Should You Ask Google To Crawl Individual Pages?

Besides resubmitting your sitemap, you can ask Google to recrawl individual pages. Valid cases where you can ask Google to recrawl individual pages of your website are:

Time-Sensitive Posts - When you publish a trending post, you can use the ‘Request Indexing’ feature to get your post indexed faster. For example, breaking news or ‘happening now’ type of articles.

Adding structured data to a post - When you add structured data or make other technical SEO changes to an existing post, you can request Google to reindex the page.

Making significant changes to a page’s content - When you change or update a post's content significantly during a content review, you can ask Google to reindex the post. This can help get the new content into Google’s index faster.

Changing the post title or meta description of an important post - When you change the page title or meta description of a post that already has rankings and gets traffic, you can use the reindexing feature to inform Google about your changes.

For example, when you change the page title of a popular post, you can request a reindex, and your search snippet will often be updated within a few days. Keep in mind that Google may still choose to show a different title or description than the one you wrote.

Note: I’m not suggesting that you should use this feature every time you change a post title or description. Use it wisely and only on important posts.

Key Learnings

Google is excellent at discovering new pages and changes to existing pages, but you can speed up this process by using the methods described above.

Use the URL Inspection tool for one page or a few pages, and your XML sitemap for many pages or a whole site. There is no way to make Google recrawl an entire website at once.

Do not use these methods every time you publish a new post; instead, use them wisely and when it really matters.

Don’t submit a request indexing for the same page more than once. It won’t make a difference.