How long until I appear in Google?

Days for the homepage if you request indexing in Search Console; weeks for the long tail. Ranking is a separate, slower question of content and links.

Do I need structured data?

Not to be indexed. It helps for rich results (articles, products, FAQs, breadcrumbs) and for machines that read your site; add the types that match your pages.

Should I add llms.txt?

It costs nothing and some AI crawlers read it. A short index of your key pages at /llms.txt is enough.

Technical SEO for a new site (launch checklist)

Everything a search engine needs on day one — canonical URLs, sitemap, robots, structured data, speed, and the indexing request — done in the right order so the first crawl counts.

Time: 1–2 days for a small site
Cost: $0
Reviewed: 5 Sept 2026; 8 steps · 22 checks

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Technical SEO at launch is a short list done in a specific order: make one canonical version of the site, make it crawlable, tell the engines it exists, and measure it. None of it ranks you by itself; all of it prevents the silent failures that keep new sites out of the index for weeks.

One canonical host, HTTPS only

Choose www or non-www and 301-redirect the other, and http to https, in one hop.
Add a canonical link tag on every page pointing to itself on the chosen host.
Check with curl that each of the four variants (http/https × www/non-www) lands on the same final URL with a 301.

Remove staging protections

Search the live HTML for noindex and the response headers for X-Robots-Tag.
Remove basic auth, IP allowlists and the "coming soon" page.
Make sure robots.txt allows crawling and does not block CSS, JS or images.

Head tags that matter

Unique title (under ~60 characters) and meta description (under ~160) on every page.
Open Graph and Twitter card tags with a real image (1200×630) so shared links render.
lang attribute on html, viewport meta, and a favicon.

Sitemap and robots

Generate sitemap.xml from the live URL set, with lastmod where you have it; keep it under 50,000 URLs per file.
Reference it in robots.txt with a Sitemap: line.
Return a real 404 status for missing pages (not a 200 "not found" page).

Structured data

Add JSON-LD for the page types you have: Organization and WebSite on the home page, Article or HowTo on content pages, BreadcrumbList on inner pages, FAQPage where there are questions.
Validate with the Rich Results Test and fix warnings that are actual errors.

Speed and Core Web Vitals

Run PageSpeed Insights on the home page and one inner page; fix the largest LCP element (usually an unsized hero image) and any layout shift.
Compress and size images (WebP/AVIF, explicit width/height), preload the main font, defer non-critical scripts.
Target LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1 on mobile.

Register and request indexing

Verify the domain in Google Search Console (DNS TXT record) and Bing Webmaster Tools (import from GSC).
Submit the sitemap in both.
Use URL Inspection to request indexing for the home page and your five most important pages.
Add a short /llms.txt listing your key pages for AI crawlers.

Set the baseline

Note the indexed-page count, the Core Web Vitals report and the crawl stats after two weeks; that is the baseline every later change is measured against.

Questions

How long until I appear in Google?: Days for the homepage if you request indexing in Search Console; weeks for the long tail. Ranking is a separate, slower question of content and links.
Do I need structured data?: Not to be indexed. It helps for rich results (articles, products, FAQs, breadcrumbs) and for machines that read your site; add the types that match your pages.
Should I add llms.txt?: It costs nothing and some AI crawlers read it. A short index of your key pages at /llms.txt is enough.

Sources

The numbers above come from these pages. If a fee or date here disagrees with the source, the source wins.

Report an outdated step

Build a landing page that converts

A live page with a single call to action, analytics goal tracking, and a first-week conversion baseline

1–2 days · $0–$20/month for hosting and forms · 6 steps

Launch & marketing · Global

Launch a product on social media (SMO)

Two live channels with a launch sequence posted, a content cadence you can keep, and click-through data by channel

1 week of preparation · $0 · 6 steps

Launch & marketing · Global

Launch on Product Hunt

A live Product Hunt listing with real comments, a traffic spike you captured, and a badge you can use for a year

6 weeks of preparation · $0 · 6 steps

1One canonical host, HTTPS only

2Remove staging protections

3Head tags that matter

4Sitemap and robots

5Structured data

6Speed and Core Web Vitals

7Register and request indexing

8Set the baseline