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At the moment, Google Site Search isn't really working for me. I checked Google Cache and it says that the site was last updated on Dec 16 back when there was very little content.

How do I get Google to re-index the website so that it can find the new content?

Is there anything I can do programatically for this to happen with HTML or JavaScript maybe?

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If your site is new then Google won't have established a suitable crawl rate. You can submit new or updated pages in Google Webmaster Tools:

  1. Goto Health > Fetch as Google

  2. Specify a URL or leave blank for the home page and click Fetch

  3. Once the page has been fetched there will be another button Submit to index

  4. Select "URL and all linked pages" and click OK

You should also consider submitting an XML sitemap if you have not already. Again, in Google Webmaster Tools, under Optimization > Sitemaps. You can also specify the location of your sitemap in robots.txt:

Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap.xml

When your sitemap changes, resubmit it to Google. You can do this programmatically using an HTTP request. See the Google Help Docs for more information.

And then wait; it takes time. As godka states, Google will generally find and index your content without further intervention. In the meantime, write great content and get people to link to it!

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  • Additionally, look under health->index status on google webmaster tools. There you may be able to see if your pages were simply not selected to be indexed. That might be the case if they're too similar.
    – riseagainst
    Jan 2, 2013 at 22:49
  • @w3d: as you say "And then wait" is the key here. What you're suggesting is a kind of a poke to google, and they might or might not take it into account, but it can still help (you'd better wish you have some good changes to your site by the time the bot crawls). nice answer btw
    – CSᵠ
    Jan 3, 2013 at 23:37
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How do I get Google to re-index the website so that it can find the new content?

You don't! Google is like Chuck Norris :) they will find you...

Is there anything I can do programatically for this to happen with html or javascript maybe?

Programmatically no, but you could add some quality content to your website and then sit and wait for it to be found and shared/linked to (or force this a little by getting your site/articles known -again you'll need quality content-)

Search engines might not be interested in your content if:

  • your site is updated rarely
  • site is too new
  • poor content or copy/paste content found on your site
  • poor SEO (your site doesn't follow W3C standards)
  • etc...
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  • W3C standards have nothing to do with SEO.
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Jan 3, 2013 at 10:31
  • @DisgruntledGoat: try using multiple H1 tags, broken tags, lot's of javascript an flash, etc... as bad examples
    – CSᵠ
    Jan 3, 2013 at 23:33
  • Multiple H1 tags are allowed in HTML5, broken tags are often parseable by search engines (and some missing closing tags are allowed in the standard) and Javascript is part of W3C standards. So by your logic following standards could mean poor SEO. In reality, it makes little difference to SEO, although you should keep to standards so that the page actually works for your users.
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Jan 4, 2013 at 0:46
  • HTML5 just got to "recommended" status and is not mature yet; "broken tags are often parseable" true; forgetting to close tags has bad consequences for bots in understanding/following the content; using JS to modify real content is also a very bad an ugly practice; so in conclusion a badly written website (in terms of markup) should not get taken so seriously and also it doesn't get all the points from SE's ("little difference" as you say, but we shouldn't be lazy here)
    – CSᵠ
    Jan 4, 2013 at 1:04

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