When do you use 'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster?

[Rubix]

Hi,

I was wondering when and how often do you use  'Fetch as a Google'' on Google Webmaster and do you submit individual pages or main URL only?

I've googled it but i got confused more. I appreciate if you could help.

Thanks

[AWCthreads]

I think GWT explains it very well.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/158587?hl=en

I typically use it to submit new pages to the index although its probably not necessary if you have an xml sitemap. Not certain on that one.

More tech savvy folks probably use it to also check the crawlability and "health" of pages.

[Rubix]

Thank you AWC, I've read that article arlready but I am not quite sure is that how often this feature should be used.  I think i should be more specific..If  you have a ecommerce website and adding a product every 2-3days, would you submit the link every time you add  a new item ?  When you publish a blog article on your website, would you submit it immediately?

[AWCthreads]

I submit every product and category I add.

Do I have to? No. Is it necessary? No - we have an xml sitemap generator. Google is like Big Brother - he will find you. Fetch is a tool that you can use or not use.

Will Google find it faster and will you show up more quickly in search results if you submit it? I don't know.

[rusted88]

If I add a lot a product/articles I just do a sitemap re-submit but if I only add one product or article I just wait till the bots crawl to that links. It usually takes a couple of day before it gets indexed. I never really used the fetch as google unless I made changes to the structure of the website.

Hope this helps.

[AWCthreads]

Here's an oh-by-the-way.

One of our manufacturer's came out with a product via slow roll literally within the last 5 days.  They have not announced the release of it to the retailers.  I happened to stumble on it visiting their site while updating products.

I did a search of the term and found I wasn't the only one unaware of it so I scrambled to add the product to the site, promote it and submit it to the index late Tuesday.

It's Thursday and its showing in SERPs.

Would it have appeared that quickly if I didn't submit it via fetch?  I don't know for sure but I'm inclined to think not. Call me superstitious.

Someone debunk the myth if you can. One less thing for me to do.

[MagicDude4Eva]

Use it as a "diagnostic tool" to check how content or error pages are retrieved via the bot. I specifically look at it from a content and HTTP-status perspective.

I would not use it to submit URLs - for that you should rather use a sitemap file. Think of "Fetch as Google" as a troubleshooting tool and not something to submit pages to an index.

[Rubix]

Thanks Gerd, Would you mind clarifying a bit more what 'diagnostic tool' is and if you recommend a name as well, that'll be fantastic.

[MagicDude4Eva]

Sida, what I meant is that I use the Google Webmaster Tool function "Fetch as Google" only as a diagnostic function to see how GoogleBot receives a request from my website.

It seems that people fetch URLs via the GWMT "Fetch as Google" and then use the function to submit it to the index. I find that not a good idea as any new content should either be discoverable (via SEO) or should be submitted to Google automatically via a sitemap (hinted in robots.txt)

[Rubix]

Thank you so much for your reply. I am a bit more clear now what to do. Appreciate your help.

[Rubix]

Thanks Frank, appreciate your help

[Rubix]

Thanks Gerd, it's a bit more clear now. Appreciate your help.

[MagicDude4Eva]

I hazard to say that if the new product was in the sitemap it would have also appears in the SERPs. We submit sitemaps every day and products are in the index within hours.

I guess the GWMT manual submission is okay if you need to manually fix some pages, but then it asks the question, how your SEO efforts could not make those visible to bots (via link structure or sitemaps).