How to submit your Drupal website to Google Search (the easy way!)
How to submit your Drupal website to Google Search (for D11, D10, and D9)
So, you’ve built, published, and launched your Drupal website - awesome! But now, you need Google to find and rank it so people can actually see it. This is what is known as search engine optimization or SEO. Don’t worry, getting your Drupal website on Google Search isn’t complicated. Just follow these steps, and you’ll be on your way to better visibility.
Step 1: Verify your website with Google Search Console (GSC)
First things first, you need to prove to Google that you own the site. This is done through Google Search Console (GSC), a free tool that helps monitor your website’s search performance.
- Go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account.
- Click "Start now", then "Add Property" (your website).
- Enter your full website URL. If your site is on HTTPS, make sure you include that in the URL.
- Google will ask you to verify ownership. There are different ways to do this:
- HTML file upload (recommended): Google gives you a file to upload to your website’s root folder.
- DNS verification: If you have access to your domain settings, you can add a verification TXT record.
- Meta tag method: If you’re comfortable editing your site’s <head> section, you can add a meta tag to your homepage.
Once verified, you’re good to go!
If you need help with setting up Google Search Console or are interested to learn maximizing its many useful features, sign up to our Google Search Console training where these are covered in-depth.
Step 2: Submit your sitemap to Google with a sitemap
A sitemap is like a roadmap of your website that tells Google where to find your pages. If Google can read your sitemap, it can index your site more efficiently.
Since you’re using Drupal, you can generate a sitemap automatically with the XML Sitemap module:
- Install and enable the XML Sitemap module.
- Configure it under Configuration → Search and metadata → XML sitemap (/admin/config/search/xmlsitemap).
- Generate the sitemap and find it at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml.
Now, submit your website to Google:
- Open Google Search Console.
- Go to "Sitemaps" in the left menu.
- Enter your sitemap URL (just type sitemap.xml at the end of your domain).
- Click "Submit".
Google will now crawl and index your site!
You may also find this tutorial helpful on how to setup sitemap XML on Drupal from this YouTube tutorial.
Step 3: Request indexing for your URLs and important webpages
Sometimes, you don’t want to wait for Google to discover your site on its own. You can speed things up using the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console:
- Go to Google Search Console.
- Click "URL Inspection" on the left.
- Enter your homepage URL and press Enter.
- If it’s not indexed yet, click "Request Indexing".
Do this for key pages like your homepage, services page, blog posts, especially newly-published priority pages like product or service pages.
Step 4: Check your robots.txt file
Your website has a robots.txt file that tells search engines what they can and cannot crawl. If this file is misconfigured, Google might not be able to index your site at all!
Check your robots.txt file by visiting:
yourwebsite.com/robots.txt
It should not contain this line:
User-agent: * Disallow: /
That would block Google completely! Instead, it should allow crawling like this:
User-agent: * Disallow:
Step 5: Improve your SEO for better ranking
Now that Google knows your site exists, let’s make sure it ranks well! Here are some quick SEO tips. Ideally, though, you should have at least implemented these before generating and submitting your sitemap to GSC. You would want Google to immediately have a good impression on its first visit to your website and URLs. It's like meeting a person for the first time. You would want a good impression so you get the visits more often.
- Install the Drupal Metatag module – This helps optimize your site’s metadata (titles, descriptions, etc.) for better search rankings.
- Use clean URLs – Go to Configuration → Search and metadata → Clean URLs (/admin/config/search/clean-urls). You may use the Drupal Path Auto module to automate your search engine friendly URLs
- Optimize for mobile – Google loves mobile-friendly sites, so use a responsive Drupal theme.
- Improve page speed – Enable caching in Configuration → Performance (/admin/config/development/performance). You may also use additional Drupal modules, or improve server settings to further improve speed performance for SEO
Step 6: Promote your website
Google loves websites that are linked from other reputable sources. Help improve your visibility and ranking by:
- Sharing your website on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
- Listing it in online directories (Google My Business, industry-related listings)
- Getting backlinks from other websites (guest blogging, collaborations)
That’s It! Now let Google do its thing
Once you’ve done all this, Google will gradually crawl, index, and rank your website. Keep an eye on Google Search Console to track progress and fix any issues.
Need help optimizing your Drupal site further? Let’s talk!
If you need help with SEO for your websites, check out our SEO services, and also our training course on SEO and Drupal.
