How to Add Netlify Sites to Google Search Engine Results Page

Suppose we’ve registered a NameCheap domain and pointed it to our deployed site in Netlify.

If you haven’t yet, read up on how to connect a custom NameCheap domain to a Netlify deployable.

How can we index this site in Google and have it show up in Google’s search results?

We have two criteria before continuing with this article:

1. We have a Google account
2. We have a custom domain pointing to a Netlify app

1. Google Search Console: verify site ownership

1. Head over to the Google Search Console (GSC)
2. Select Add Property
3. Type in your custom domain, and click Continue
4. In the Verify domain ownership via DNS record popup, copy the string of text starting with google-site-verification=*
5. Leave this page open, and open a new tab for the next section

2. Netlify: verify domain with TXT record

1. Go to the Netlify Dashboard, where it lists Sites and Builds
2. Select Domains (or go to https://app.netlify.com/teams/your_username/dns)
3. Click the custom domain you want to add to Google
4. Select Add new record
   • Record type: TXT
   • Name: @
   • Value: google-site-verification=*

3. Google Search Console: request indexing

1. Let’s go back to the GSC tab and select Verify
2. Once in site’s search console page, select URL Inspection
3. Type in a page you want to index
4. Select Request Indexing
5. Repeat 2-5 for all pages to index

GSC will automatically crawl any submitted site, but it may take a few days or even a few weeks. Manually requesting indexing may speed up the process.

We can also submit a sitemap if there are too many URLs to index.