When do you use 'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster?
-
Hi,
I was wondering when and how often do you use 'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster and do you submit individual pages or main URL only?
I've googled it but i got confused more. I appreciate if you could help.
Thanks
-
I hazard to say that if the new product was in the sitemap it would have also appears in the SERPs. We submit sitemaps every day and products are in the index within hours.
I guess the GWMT manual submission is okay if you need to manually fix some pages, but then it asks the question, how your SEO efforts could not make those visible to bots (via link structure or sitemaps).
-
Thanks Gerd, it's a bit more clear now. Appreciate your help.
-
Thanks Frank, appreciate your help
-
Thank you so much for your reply. I am a bit more clear now what to do. Appreciate your help.
-
Sida, what I meant is that I use the Google Webmaster Tool function "Fetch as Google" only as a diagnostic function to see how GoogleBot receives a request from my website.
It seems that people fetch URLs via the GWMT "Fetch as Google" and then use the function to submit it to the index. I find that not a good idea as any new content should either be discoverable (via SEO) or should be submitted to Google automatically via a sitemap (hinted in robots.txt)
-
Thanks Gerd, Would you mind clarifying a bit more what 'diagnostic tool' is and if you recommend a name as well, that'll be fantastic.
-
Use it as a "diagnostic tool" to check how content or error pages are retrieved via the bot. I specifically look at it from a content and HTTP-status perspective.
I would not use it to submit URLs - for that you should rather use a sitemap file. Think of "Fetch as Google" as a troubleshooting tool and not something to submit pages to an index.
-
Here's an oh-by-the-way.
One of our manufacturer's came out with a product via slow roll literally within the last 5 days. They have not announced the release of it to the retailers. I happened to stumble on it visiting their site while updating products.
I did a search of the term and found I wasn't the only one unaware of it so I scrambled to add the product to the site, promote it and submit it to the index late Tuesday.
It's Thursday and its showing in SERPs.
Would it have appeared that quickly if I didn't submit it via fetch? I don't know for sure but I'm inclined to think not. Call me superstitious.
Someone debunk the myth if you can. One less thing for me to do.
-
If I add a lot a product/articles I just do a sitemap re-submit but if I only add one product or article I just wait till the bots crawl to that links. It usually takes a couple of day before it gets indexed. I never really used the fetch as google unless I made changes to the structure of the website.
Hope this helps.
-
I submit every product and category I add.
Do I have to? No. Is it necessary? No - we have an xml sitemap generator. Google is like Big Brother - he will find you. Fetch is a tool that you can use or not use.
Will Google find it faster and will you show up more quickly in search results if you submit it? I don't know.
-
Thank you AWC, I've read that article arlready but I am not quite sure is that how often this feature should be used. I think i should be more specific..If you have a ecommerce website and adding a product every 2-3days, would you submit the link every time you add a new item ? When you publish a blog article on your website, would you submit it immediately?
-
I think GWT explains it very well.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/158587?hl=en
I typically use it to submit new pages to the index although its probably not necessary if you have an xml sitemap. Not certain on that one.
More tech savvy folks probably use it to also check the crawlability and "health" of pages.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Http to https - is a '302 object moved' redirect losing me link juice?
Hi guys, I'm looking at a new site that's completely under https - when I look at the http variant it redirects to the https site with "302 object moved" within the code. I got this by loading the http and https variants into webmaster tools as separate sites, and then doing a 'fetch as google' across both. There is some traffic coming through the http option, and as people start linking to the new site I'm worried they'll link to the http variant, and the 302 redirect to the https site losing me ranking juice from that link. Is this a correct scenario, and if so, should I prioritise moving the 302 to a 301? Cheers, Jez
Technical SEO | | jez0000 -
Google Published Date - Does Google Lie?
Here's the scenario. I create a page called "ABC" and it gets published and found by Google lets say on the 13th of April. on the 15th (or 14th) i decide to update the URL, page Title, and content. (Redirect old URL to new URL as well) Will Google still show this page as being published on the 13th? or would it update the publish date according to the new URL? Greg | | | | | | <a id="question_reply-to-question-36769-description_codeblock" class="mceButton mceButtonEnabled mce_codeblock" style="color: #000000; border: 1px solid #f0f0ee; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: transparent; cursor: default; vertical-align: baseline; width: 20px; border-collapse: separate; display: block; height: 20px;" title="Create Code Block" tabindex="-1"></a>Create Code Block | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets0 -
My backlinks do not register on your software but are registered on my google webmaster tools
Why are my back links not being recognized by any software other than google webmaster?
Technical SEO | | SteveK640 -
No Google cached snapshot image... 'Text-only version' working.
We are having an issue with Googles cached image snapshops... Here is an example: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IyvADsGi10gJ:shop.deliaonline.com/store/home-and-garden/kitchen/morphy-richards-48781-cooking/ean/5011832030948+&cd=308&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk I wondered if anyone knows or can see the cause of this problem? Thanks
Technical SEO | | pekler1 -
Google Sitelinks
We have an e-commerce site that has about 50k pageviews of our main shop page every week. However in our Google sitelinks we have one for 'Shop'. However, for the Shop sitelink Google is linking to a random URL that we have never & would never use as a URL and not to our Shop page. I can't work out why Google would pick up this random url as we have so many links etc to the main shop page. Why are they not linking to the right page? I have blocked that url in webmaster tools and done a redirect but I want to understand why it happened in the first place. It included 'swedish+fish' so it seems weirdly spammy?! Any thoughts would be really helpful (and I am only mildly techy). Many thanks
Technical SEO | | ahamill0 -
Strange Top URLs for Keywords in Google Webmaster Tools
When we click on one of our keywords under the keywords section of Google Webmaster Tools it shows our top URLs for that keyword. The problem is that it is giving us some very strange URLs that we have searched high and low to try to find but we don't know where they came from. Here is a screenshot: http://bit.ly/pl6mB3 Do you know where this type of URL string could have originated and how to fix it?
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0 -
Should I have a 'more' button for links?
I have a website that has a page for each town. rather than listing all the towns with a link to each, I want to show only the most popular towns and have a 'more' button that shows all of them when you click it. I know that the search engine can always see the full list of links and even though the visitor can't this doesn't go against Google guidelines because there is no deception involved, the more button is quite clear. However, my colleague is concerned that this is 'making life hard' for the search engines and so the pages are less likely to be indexed. I disagree. Is he right to worry about this??
Technical SEO | | mascotmike0