Google Index Alert – New Page Email Alert and Report

SEOTesting has launched a new report and email alert called New Pages.

Each time Google Search Console updates, SEOTesting will grab all the URLs for a site that have appeared in the search results and alert you to any newly discovered URLs.

This will help you find out when new content has been crawled, indexed, and ranked in the search results by Google.

Previously this has been quite a manual process of visiting Google and manually using the search operator:

If you are doing this daily, for a number of different URLs, this can quickly become tedious and time-consuming.

How is the New Page alert and report useful?

With SEOTesting automatically discovering new URLs and alerting you to them being in the search results, you get a number of benefits:

1, No more manually checking Google search results to see whether your new page is appearing.

2, If you are a consultant or agency, find new pages your customers are publishing so you can audit and proactively find issues.

3, Discover crawl traps and canonical issues.

4, Find out if your site has been hacked and malicious URLs are being added to Google.

5, Uncover URLs in Google that shouldn’t be there and act on the information immediately.

How can I tell if Google has indexed my page?

You can use the URL inspection tool from within Google Search Console to get information on whether Googlebot has indexed your page.

It’s important to remember that crawling, indexing, and ranking are 3 different things.

The new alert and report in SEOTesting will let you know which pages have started ranking within the search results and are findable by search users and potential customers.

How can I tell if Google is ranking my page?

This is more tricky. I have often seen instances where a page is appearing in the Google index using the site: operator, but Google is not ranking it yet for the target keywords.

Only when the page begins to appear in the search results for queries users are entering is it fair to say the article is ranking within Google.

It’s hard to check for this, without manually checking queries and paging through search results. You can manually check Google Search Console data, and automate the process further with SEOTesting.

What about historical information on when URLs were first seen in the search results

New URLs are discovered from the point in time of adding your site to SEOTesting, or from 2021-11-24 which is when the feature was first deployed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the New Page alert in SEOTesting?

The New Page alert is an email notification and report in SEOTesting that tells you when new URLs from your site first appear in Google Search Console data—indicating that they’ve been crawled, indexed, and ranked.

How does SEOTesting detect new indexed pages?

SEOTesting pulls data from the Google Search Console API and highlights URLs that appear for the first time in search results. This is updated with each new GSC data refresh.

Why is this feature useful for SEOs and marketers?

It helps detect new content being indexed, find crawl traps, identify unauthorized or hacked URLs, and uncover pages that shouldn’t be indexed. It also saves time compared to manual checks.

Can I use this to see if Google has indexed my content?

Yes. If your page appears in the New Pages report, it means it has been indexed and is visible in search results. You can also confirm indexing manually via the URL Inspection tool in GSC.

Is ranking the same as indexing?

No. A page can be indexed but not ranking for any meaningful queries. The New Page report focuses on URLs that have begun to appear in actual search result data, indicating some level of ranking.

From what date does SEOTesting track new URL appearances?

The feature began on 2021-11-24. URLs are tracked either from that date or from the time your site is added to SEOTesting.