Bypassing 'Discovered - not indexed' with API

miaaffiliate

We all know the standard GSC crawl queue is heavily backlogged right now, especially if you're running programmatic clusters for affiliate offers. I wanted to test whether batch-pinging the Google Indexing API actually bypasses that queue for standard content - not just jobs or livestreams.

Split 5,000 new pages into two groups over 7 days:

Control (2,500 via XML sitemap): 8.4% indexed.
Test (2,500 via Indexing API): 94% indexed, most within 48 hours.

If you've got orphan pages or a stuck crawl queue, forcing the crawl via the API is the fast track right now.

The GCP setup is the usual pain point: create a project, enable the Web Search Indexing API, set up a service account, download the JSON key. Then in GSC, add that service account email as a user with Owner permissions - Full won't work, you'll hit a 403. After that, use the google-api-python-client to batch ping your URLs.

I got tired of managing scripts per site, so I built a simple browser-based UI for my team to just paste URLs and the JSON file. But the raw API works fine if you're comfortable in the terminal.

One thing I'm watching for: do pages indexed via the API drop off over 3-6 months compared to naturally crawled ones? I've seen some folks say overusing it can slow your crawl rate or even get you banned if you hammer it. i keep it to 100 URLs per site per day across multiple projects and haven't been hit yet.

anyone else testing this for standard content sites? keen to hear about longer-term indexing stability.

prpro

I think most of us here have attempted it. There are caveats, its for job posting, its 200 requests a day unless you can increase it or use other projects, it doesn't bypass discovered - currently not index, it just submits it to google for index further up the queue from my undertstanding.

I know people who have been ban from it by google for over using it. Misusing it can actually lead to google crawling your site slower.

So far I made an automatic tool for it for at least 3 years now. It does 100 urls a site per day, and i have mutliple projects to handle different clients. Haven't been ban from it, so far.

It does work for index on average but doesn't at all affect the query. Thats still leads by quality of content, links, status codes etc.

bouncekiller

John Mueller: "We see a lot of spammers misuse the Indexing API like this, so I'd recommend just sticking to the documented & supported use-cases." So, it's not a useful hack and likely hurts more than helps. The drop off is proof of that.

ethan-pr

i've been using this approach for years. The indexed URLs tend to drop off after a couple of days-no penalty, though. google's own spokesperson confirmed it's purely an authority issue

ppcnerd

Might want to do some more research on this before you proceed further: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-indexing-api-unsupported-content-39470.html. Only JobPosting and BroadcastEvent as a VideoObject as valid structured are accepted in their API.

Continuing down this route could leave you open to Google considering this abuse of their systems and block your IPs or penalize you/your sites.

pixelpusher

honestly, I'm not convinced this is as useful as people make out. using the Indexing API for small content sites is just a band-aid for shitty crawl budget management. You're essentially gaming a system that Google should already handle if your architecture didn't suck. But hey, if you like throwing API calls at a problem instead of fixing core SEO fundamentals, go for it.

avadata

Appreciate the data, but this isn't what Google's Indexing API was built for. It's strictly for job postings and livestreams - throwing 5k URLs at it will likely get your access throttled or revoked. Fix crawl budget first.

lucasvid

RankMath baked this in years ago. Speeds up indexing like crazy.

isa-ecom

That's indexNow, a Bing thing. Different stuff but worth configuring anyway