Every backlink you earn is a potential boost to your website’s ranking, but are you making sure Google actually finds them? Backlinks are hard to acquire and even harder to maintain but this one trick can boost the impact and link juice that you get from these backlinks.
When another website links to yours, it’s like they’re telling their audience, “Hey, check out this great resource!” These backlinks are a key factor in how Google perceives your website’s authority and relevance.
But to get this vote of confidence or the link juice from these backlinks your backlinks should be indexed with Google. It should have those in its register.
But what is Indexing?
Google has a special software programs, called “web crawlers” or “spiders,” which tirelessly follow links from one web page to another. This process allows Google to discover new webpages and update its massive index.
As the crawlers discover new pages, Google creates an “index” of them. This acts like a giant library catalog, where Google stores information about each webpage, including its content, structure, and of course, the backlinks it has.
Now Google has something called “Crawl Budget” for every site, as per which, it restricts time spent by a spider on that site & when it comes back again. More traffic & popular & trustable sites have a high crawl budget, new sites, not so much.
Now, this natural process of Google discovering your backlink with the help of it’s spiders can take a very long time which can potentially delay the positive outcome or link juice that you get from the backlinks.
Now the solution to this problem of slow indexing is asking the person giving you backlinks to send them for prioritised indexing with their Google Search Console.
You can try other things as well, like requesting them to share it with their social media audience & email newsletters for more eyes on the page, but for SEO purpose, getting your URLs for Request Indexing can help give faster results.
Submitting backlinks through Google Search Console can potentially signal to Google that you consider these links particularly important. While Google doesn’t guarantee faster indexing, it may prioritize crawling these specific links, leading to a quicker recognition of their value for your website.
What does prioritized Indexing refer to?
Prioritized indexing is the process of proactively notifying Google about new or updated content on your website that you would like them to crawl and index as soon as possible. This can be done through Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool and its “Request Indexing” feature.
You can submit these links for Indexing through The “Request Indexing” Option
When you submit a URL for indexing using this option, you’re essentially telling Google, “Hey, I think this page is important, and I’d like you to check it out and add it to your index if appropriate.”
Remember this can only be done if they have access to the Google Search console of that site, so agencies and link brokers won’t be able to do this for you.
Is there any tool for this?
While there are multiple tools for this purpose, we recommend you use Google search console for better results. You can also use things like Backlink Indexing Add-on from Backlink Monitor. It works through site pinging.
Google Search Console: This is Google’s official platform for website owners to communicate with the search engine. Submitting a URL for indexing through this tool is a direct signal from the webmaster about the importance of that particular page.
External Indexing Tools: These tools act as intermediaries, sending frequent pings and requests to Google on your behalf. While useful, they don’t possess the same level of direct communication and authority as Google’s own platform but in most of the cases you can’t access backlink website’s search console, so this is your best bet to get your backlinks indexed.
That’s where BLM from our BLISP SEO tool-suite comes in, BLM has an add-on feature called backlink Indexer, with backlink indexer you can check the Indexing status of your backlinks automatically through Google Search APIs & Index them quickly using site pinging. Also build Tier 2 links for your backlinks to strengthen them. You can check out BLM here.
The difference between GSC and 3rd party tools lays at:
Focused Requests: Selective submission through Search Console demonstrates a more measured and responsible approach to indexing, potentially looked upon more favourably.
This doesn’t mean external indexing tools are useless. They serve a purpose, especially when you don’t have access to GSC which is the case the majority of time when it comes to backlinks cuz they are usually obtained from other websites. So, Use GSC if you have access else you can rely on 3rd party tools like Backlink Indexer.
The most crucial factor is still earning backlinks from reputable, relevant websites. Prioritized indexing helps Google recognize those backlinks faster, but it doesn’t magically make low-quality links valuable.
So, whenever you get really high-quality backlinks, request them to send it for prioritised indexing and till then, Happy Link-Building.