How to Leverage the Google Indexing API for Faster Website Indexing: A No-Code Approach

What is the Google Indexing API?

The Google Indexing API is a way to submit web pages directly to Google's indexing system. By using the API, you can notify Google when new pages are added to your site or when existing pages are updated. This will significantly speed up the indexing process and improve your website's visibility in search results.

What is Make?

Make is a no-code automation platform that allows you to build workflows and integrations between different tools and services. With Make, you can create workflows that automate repetitive tasks, such as submitting URLs for indexing.

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a cloud-based database that allows you to store and manage data in a spreadsheet-like format. It offers a powerful API that can be used to integrate with other tools and services.

Building an Automation Solution Using Make and Airtable

Step 1: Identify the URLs to be Indexed

The first step is to identify the URLs that need to be submitted for indexing. You can do this by exporting the list of URLs from your Google Search Console account, or by using other tools that can crawl your website and identify URLs that are not yet indexed.

Step 2: Store the URLs in Airtable

Once you have identified the URLs, you can store them in an Airtable database. Create a new table and add a column for the URL and another column for the timestamp to represent when the indexing call was made.

Step 3: Set up Your Google Cloud Console API Credentials

To use the Google Indexing API, you will need to obtain API credentials from the Google Cloud Console. Follow the instructions provided by Google to create a new project and enable the Indexing API. Then, create a new API key and copy the key to your clipboard.

Step 4: Create a New Workflow in Make

Log in to your Make account and create a new workflow. Drag the Airtable block to the canvas and select the table that contains the URLs you want to submit for indexing.

Step 5: Add a "Search Records" Block

Drag a "Search Records" block from the Airtable section to the canvas. Configure the block to search for records that have not yet been indexed. Set the loop to run for a maximum of 200 iterations, which is the limit for the Google Indexing API.

Step 6: Add a "Delay" Block

Drag a "Delay" block to the canvas and connect it to the "Loop" block. Set the delay to 1 second to avoid overwhelming the indexing API.

Step 7: Add a "HTTP Request" Block

Drag an "HTTP Request" block to the canvas and connect it to the "Delay" block. Configure the block to make a POST request to the Google Indexing API endpoint, using the API key you obtained in Step 3. In the body of the request, include the URL from Airtable and specify the type as "URL updated".

Step 8: Add a "Conditional" Block

Drag a "Conditional" block to the canvas and connect it to the "HTTP Request" block. Configure the block to check the response code from the API request. This will be used to handle errors and also update Airtable to show that a URL has been successfully indexed.

Benefits of This Approach

• Automation: Eliminate manual submission of URLs to Google Search Console
• Faster Indexing: Get your pages indexed by Google much faster than waiting for Googlebot to discover them
• Scalability: Easily handle hundreds of URLs with automated batch processing
• No-Code Solution: Build the entire workflow without writing a single line of code
• Tracking: Keep a record in Airtable of which URLs have been submitted and when
• Error Handling: Automatically detect and handle API errors

Conclusion

By leveraging the Google Indexing API with Make and Airtable, you can significantly speed up the indexing process for your website. This no-code approach makes it accessible to anyone, regardless of technical expertise. The automation ensures that your new and updated pages are submitted to Google promptly, improving your website's visibility and SEO performance.

Say goodbye to the hassle of manual indexing and hello to an automated and efficient way of getting your content seen by search engines. Start building your automation today and watch your pages get indexed faster than ever before!