After you publish or update a page, Google doesn’t always see it immediately — the next crawl might be hours or days away. SEO Forge lets you submit any URL for re-crawl with one click via the Google Indexing API.
How to submit a URL for indexing
- In the post edit screen, find the Search Engine Submission metabox in the right-side panel.
- Click Submit to Google Index.
- If your Google account isn’t connected yet, SEO Forge redirects you to the consent screen. If it is — submission happens instantly. You see a success banner with the exact UTC timestamp Google acknowledged the request.
- If you’ve deleted a post and want Google to drop it from the index, use Mark URL as deleted — same flow, different notification type.
History + audit trail
Every submission is logged to our backend (indexing_submissions table). Go to SEO Forge > Indexing to see the history:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| URL | The URL you submitted |
| Type | URL_UPDATED for publish/update, URL_DELETED for removal |
| Status | ✓ OK if Google accepted / ✗ Error with the message |
| Submitted | When you clicked the button |
| Notify time | The UTC timestamp Google acknowledged |
When it works, when it doesn’t
- ✓ Works: the URL’s domain is a verified property in your Search Console account, AND Google accepts the submission on their end (no rate-limit, no policy violation).
- ✗ Doesn’t work: URL isn’t on a verified property you own →
permissionDeniederror in the history. Verify the property in Search Console first.
Rate limits
Google Indexing API has its own quota — in practice you can submit hundreds of URLs per day without hitting it. If you ever do, the error message will say so, and the submission is logged so you can retry later.
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