Search Engine Submissions

This internal checklist outlines a repeatable process to submit your website and monitor visibility across major search engines. It starts by organizing titles, descriptions, H1 tags, and content, then moves into website submission and ongoing reporting. Earlier tools like Web Position Gold and third-party submitters are mentioned for ranking reports and mass URL submission, along with a caution that bulk services can trigger spam. The intent is clear: create a disciplined workflow, adjust it per project, and track results over time.

Modern teams can extend the checklist with current webmaster tools. Verify website ownership in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools (Bing WMT) using DNS TXT record or DNS verification, then verify your site with a meta tag if needed. Submit sitemap to Google and submit site to Bing by adding your XML sitemap (sitemap.xml) and sitemap URL.

Submit using GSC and submit using Bing WMT to index your site, then use URL Inspection to request indexing for priority pages and confirm whether a URL is on Google or not. Use the site operator or site search operator to check site indexing coverage, and watch crawl patterns from search engine bots to improve site indexing speed. For WordPress, a URL submission plugin, such as the Bing URL Submissions plugin, can automate a submit URL flow for new content.

The checklist also encourages selective outreach. Focus on quality sources rather than a top 50 search engine list. Submit to multiple search engines where relevant: DuckDuckGo, Yandex, and submit to Yahoo via Bing.

For local search engines and business listings, maintain a Google Business Profile (Google business page), Apple Maps, and Bing Places, and consider Google News eligibility if applicable. Avoid submission services and any guaranteed traffic program; prioritize submitting to the site using a sitemap and manual URL submission only when justified. Use a page speed analyzer, link popularity checker, search engine saturation tool, and a meta tag generator to standardize audits and metadata. Import from Search Console data into your reports to monitor progress.

Use cases include a WordPress retailer launching a catalog and using request indexing for new products; a SaaS provider adding a support article and submitting a URL to index; a home services firm updating business listings as part of a monthly website submission plan.

Proposal Kit can help teams package this process into clear deliverables: assemble checklists and SOPs, include automated line-item quoting for submission and monitoring services, and use the AI Writer and template library to create supporting documents and status reports with ease.

Expanding on the checklist's intent, treat verification and submission as a coordinated launch plan that aligns marketing, IT, and content teams. Start with site verification: verify domain ownership in both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools using DNS record verification or a meta tag, then document the process so anyone on the team can repeat it. Verification ensures you can submit a sitemap, monitor indexing, and resolve issues when a site is not on Google.

After verification, submit the site to Google, submit the site to Yahoo, and submit to DuckDuckGo, where applicable; most teams will submit your URL to multiple search engines through a sitemap-first approach. Always submit a sitemap and resubmit after major releases to accelerate crawl coverage.

Use a simple runbook: submit the domain in each webmaster portal, submit your site to search engines with a clean sitemap XML, and submit a page URL for critical updates. Confirm when a site is on Google, then spot-check new sections. For brands with regional presence, submit your site to Yahoo via Bing integrations and maintain localized business listings. Maintain a concise search console guide and escalation steps for indexing delays.

Proposal Kit helps teams package this into consistent, client-ready deliverables. Build a standard operating procedure for domain ownership and site verification, including task lists for submitting sites to Google and submitting to DuckDuckGo, and add automated line-item quoting for monthly monitoring. Use the AI Writer and template library to create checklists, intake forms, and launch reports that reduce confusion and speed approvals across stakeholders.

To strengthen the checklist from a leadership perspective, establish governance, cadence, and measurable outcomes. Define KPIs for discovery and growth: impressions, clicks, average position, pages indexed, crawl errors, sitemap health, and time-to-index for new URLs. Add preflight QA for launches and migrations: confirm robots.

Txt allows crawling, ensures noindex is not present in meta or X-Robots-Tag headers, verifies canonical URLs point to the correct domain, checks redirect maps, and validates structured data and sitemap integrity for news, images, and video, where applicable. Monitor server logs to spot bot access issues, throttling, or 5xx errors that suppress crawling. If a page or section shows as site not on Google, triage with a standard playbook: confirm DNS is resolving, verify ownership remains active, test live URL rendering, remove accidental password gates, fix soft-404s, resolve JavaScript rendering blocks, and resubmit the impacted URLs after remediation.

For operations, create a monthly review that aligns marketing, IT, and content. Include a change calendar, rollback steps, and risk flags for large content updates, domain consolidations, or rebrands. Document exception handling for outages and security blocks. Use case examples include a brand migrating to HTTPS, a retailer consolidating subdomains, or a publisher rolling out new category pages and monitoring indexation pace post-release.

Proposal Kit supports formalizing this program through document assembly for SOPs and migration runbooks, automated line-item quoting for monitoring and remediation services, and its AI Writer and templates to produce playbooks, status updates, and post-launch reports quickly and consistently.

Writing the Search Engine Submissions document

Search Engine Submission Checklist

See the Appendix of Resources for links to applications referenced in this and other documents. You should subscribe to the various web design newsletters, as this information may be outdated on any given day. This document is intended to be used as your own internal checklist for submitting sites. Edit the steps as needed to suit your purposes and keep it on-hand for each project you complete.

At this time we are using Search Engine Commando Pro to autosubmit one page per day per site to the top 20 search engines. Use a tool such as SEC Pro or Web Position Gold, which will be updated periodically to conform to the latest search engine guidelines. Finish site titles, descriptions, h1 tags, hook, doorway, content and splash pages. Create Web Position Gold, Search Engine Commando or Swiss Army App profile for all keywords and phrases depending on the submission software you are using.

At the time of this writing we are using Web Position Gold. Run 1st Web Position report and save. Web Position is an invaluable tool for monitoring your search engine positions.

Submit site (print main submission forms and emailed passwords). Add other paid domains you advertise on here.

Exhaustive Submission (engines listed are for illustration purposes only, edit as needed for the most popular engines you are submitting your sites to):

Find 2 categories for the site, lookup competing sites. Submit from one of those category pages and then enter the 2nd one. Either submit to a regional Yahoo! Submit only 1 URL, may take 4-12 months to get listed.

If site qualifies pay for Yahoo guaranteed review of site. Add other domains you submit too here.

Extra sites to submit to (as appropriate):

Add additional directories specific to your clients here, such as industry related portals and search engines. Use SubmitIt! or other 3rd party service (optional). Pay fee to auto list website to hundreds of engines & directories. Still very time consuming.

Odds are they only submit 1 page rather than multiple pages. Multiple techniques should still be used. Note that this submission technique can result in a lot of unwanted spam as they tend to submit to FFA Link pages and a lot of other sites who are just gathering e-mail addresses to send spam to.

Other 3rd party services you pay to submit site pages for you. Web Rings to add sites to (as appropriate for non-commercial or small niche sites). Add other rings here as needed (optional). Run Web Position Gold reports periodically and track progress.

Submit new and unlisted pages periodically.