Index on search engine

Index a site on search engines (Google + Bing)

Playbook for getting a freshly-launched site/subdomain crawled and indexed. Verified end-to-end on kids.aitraining.id (2026-06-27). Do it through the claude-in-chrome browser, which uses Ivan's logged-in accounts.

0. Prerequisite — the site must be live AND crawlable

Indexing is impossible if crawlers can't reach a clean 200. Before touching any webmaster tool, verify from the shell (use dangerouslyDisableSandbox: true for curl):

curl -s -I https://SITE/            # must be HTTP 200 (not 302→SSO, not connection-closed)
curl -s -I https://SITE/ | grep -i x-robots-tag      # must be EMPTY (no noindex header)
curl -s https://SITE/ | grep -oiE '<meta[^>]*robots[^>]*>'   # must NOT contain noindex
curl -s https://SITE/robots.txt     # AI/search bots Allowed, sitemap line present
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' https://SITE/sitemap.xml   # 200

Gotchas:

• Vercel: the auto-generated per-deployment URLs (*-hash-*.vercel.app) carry deployment-protection (302 → vercel.com/sso-api) AND noindex. The production custom domain does not. Always test the real domain, not a deploy URL.
• A "connection closed" / no-DNS error means the domain isn't wired yet — fix DNS/domain attachment first (Cloudflare CNAME sub → cname.vercel-dns.com, DNS-only/grey-cloud), then come back.

1. Google Search Console

Browser: https://search.google.com/search-console. Ivan is logged in.

• Check the property type first. aitraining.id is a Domain property (resource_id=sc-domain:aitraining.id). A domain property auto-covers every subdomain (kids.aitraining.id, www, etc.) — no new property, no new verification. Just use it.
• Submit the sitemap: left nav → Sitemaps → "Add a new sitemap" → enter the full sitemap URL (https://SUB.domain/sitemap.xml, full URL works under a domain property) → Submit. Expect "Sitemap submitted successfully".
• Request indexing (fastest single-page nudge): top "Inspect any URL" bar → paste the page URL → Enter → wait ~5s → REQUEST INDEXING → wait ~10s for the live test → "Indexing requested, added to priority crawl queue".

If the site is NOT under an existing domain property: add a new property. Prefer the Domain type (one TXT record in Cloudflare covers all subdomains) — but that needs DNS access. The URL-prefix type + HTML-tag verification (same meta-tag trick as Bing below) is the no-DNS fallback.

2. Bing Webmaster Tools

Browser: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/home. Bing has no "domain property" concept — every subdomain is its own site and needs its own verification.

1. Site dropdown (top-left) → Add a site. Two methods appear:
   • Import from GSC (left) — easy but triggers a Google OAuth grant to Microsoft. Treat that as explicit-permission territory; default to manual.
   • Add manually (right) — enter https://SUB.domain/ → Add. Use this.
2. Verify via HTML Meta Tag (the method you control without DNS):
   • The modal shows <meta name="msvalidate.01" content="CODE" />. Zoom to read CODE exactly.
   • Add it to the site in code. Next.js App Router: in layout.tsx metadata, add

     verification: { other: { "msvalidate.01": "CODE" } },
     

     (renders the exact meta tag). Leave it in permanently — removing it un-verifies the site.
   • Redeploy (vercel --prod --yes), then curl -s https://SUB.domain/ | grep msvalidate to confirm it's live, THEN click Verify.
3. Submit sitemap: left nav → Sitemaps → "Submit sitemap" → full sitemap URL → Submit (status goes "Processing").
4. Request indexing: URL Inspection → paste URL → Inspect → switch to the "Live URL" tab → "Request indexing" → Submit (daily quota ~100 URLs).

Bing gotcha — stale "Indexing allowed? No"

The "Bing Index" tab reflects Bing's last cached crawl. If you just (re)deployed, it can wrongly say "Indexing allowed? No" from a mid-deploy fetch. Don't panic — verify the live site has no noindex (section 0), then use the "Live URL" tab, which fetches fresh. "URL can be indexed by Bing" + "No SEO/GEO issues found" = you're fine. Then request indexing.

3. Brave

No submission tool / webmaster console. Brave runs its own crawler plus some Bing. It picks sites up via inbound links + Google/Bing presence. The lever: add internal links from already-indexed sibling sites (e.g. footer link on aitraining.id + aurelivan.com → the new site). That's the single biggest organic discovery accelerator anyway — do it for all three engines.

4. Safety boundaries (do NOT cross)

• Never enter passwords, complete 2FA, solve CAPTCHAs, or create accounts. If a tool shows "Sign in", stop and ask the user to log in themselves, then retry.
• Granting cross-service OAuth/SSO (e.g. Bing "Import from GSC") is explicit-permission territory — prefer the manual + meta-tag path that needs no grant.
• Sitemap submission, URL inspection, and request-indexing inside an already-logged-in console are the authorized core actions.

5. Expectations

Submitting ≠ indexed. After submission, site:SUB.domain typically returns nothing for days to ~2 weeks. Re-check site: on Google/Bing/Brave later (the geo-audit / ai-seo skills cover ongoing visibility). Record launch + submission state in memory (see kids-aitraining-launch for the template).