Search-engine indexing

After you publish, you want people to find your site on Google. This guide explains how that happens, what Webpress does for you, and how to give it a nudge.

How search engines find a site

Search engines run programs called crawlers that follow links and read pages across the web. When a crawler reaches your site, it reads each page and adds it to the search index, so it can appear in results. Two files help crawlers do this well, and Webpress creates both automatically:

• sitemap.xml — a list of all your pages, so crawlers don't miss any.
• robots.txt — instructions telling crawlers what they may visit.

You don't have to make or upload these — every published site has them.

What Webpress does automatically

Beyond the sitemap and robots file, each published page is made search-ready by default:

• a real title and description (derived from your content if you didn't set them),
• a canonical URL so search engines don't treat the same page as duplicates,
• structured data that helps Google understand your pages,
• an auto-generated social share image for link previews.

For webpress.id subdomains, Webpress can also notify search engines when you publish, to speed up discovery. In short: do nothing, and your site is still discoverable.

What you can do to help

• Write good titles and descriptions — the single biggest lever you control. See SEO basics.
• Link your pages together — a clear menu and in-page links help crawlers (and people) navigate. The Site Map flags orphaned pages nothing links to.
• Don't accidentally hide pages — check that important pages don't have Discourage search engines turned on.

Custom domains and Google Search Console

If you've connected a custom domain, the automatic platform-level submission doesn't cover it (you own that domain's settings). Your site is still discovered by normal crawling, but you can speed things up yourself:

1. Create a free Google Search Console account.
2. Add and verify your domain.
3. Submit your sitemap URL — it's at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

This is optional, but it gives you useful insight into how Google sees your site.

Be patient

Indexing isn't instant — it can take days to weeks for a new site to appear in search results, and longer to rank well. That's normal for the whole web, not a Webpress limitation. Keep your content useful and your titles clear, and results follow.

Where to go next

• SEO basics — the settings that most affect search.
• Analytics — watch your search traffic grow.