It looks like there is a strict limit of the number of URLs that you can submit to Google using the submit URL to Google feature that I’ve written about before.
There are several reasons why you might want to use the submit URL to Google feature, which is a form that appears when you search for “submit url to Google”. Here are a few reasons:
- You have a new page on your website.
- You have a new blog post on your website.
- You just disavowed a domain or a URL.
- You updated a page on your website.
What I found out today is that there currently is a limit of 50 URLs per domain name that you can submit to Google using this feature. If it’s your website, then they encourage you to submit the URL via the sitemaps feature in Google Search Console. For example, you’ll need to create a sitemap.xml file on your website, verify your website in Google Search Console, and then submit the sitemap.
What’s interesting to me, though, is that when using this feature Google thinks that this is actually my domain name that I’m submitting URLs to them. In fact, in this case today, I’m submitting URLs of a website that I just disavowed last night. By submitting the URL, I can (usually) get Google to crawl that URL. So, once they crawl it and cache the page again, the disavow will then “take effect” for me. So, if I disavowed a URL, then I will submit it using the submit URL to Google feature and it will then be recrawled quicker than if I just wait and don’t do anything at all.
Another interesting note, though, is that someone could theoretically use this submission tool to submit URLs of a competitor or someone else’s site, then locking them out from using the tool.
As you might recall, I did a test a while back with Marie Haynes, showing that you can use that form to submit someone else’s page and it will be indexed very quickly, within seconds. I wrote a new blog post, Marie Haynes then submitted it, and it was indexed very quickly.
I realize that the submit URL to Google feature is, in fact, helpful and Google does have it in the search results. But, they have limited it to a certain number of URLs per domain. Even if it’s NOT your domain or site!
What I’ve also noticed, though, that this limit might actually not be per domain–I tried submitting other URLs on another domain name using this feature, and they’ve limited the number of URLs that you can submit. I may personally have hit a limit, we’ll just see if that limit is lifted at some point. If you’re reading this post, then you might try submitting the URL of this blog post (search for “submit url to Google” and use the form there) and see if you’re locked out.
Update: If you’re wondering, if you get locked out from using this feature (it requires that you be logged into your Google account), then don’t worry. If you wait a few days you should get the feature back. That’s if you’ve been submitting a lot of URLs through this feature. Another option is to use Google’s Fetch and Render tool, but that won’t allow you to submit as many URLs for updating. If you’re trying to remove pages from Google, then you’ll need to use Google’s removal tool. Note that you can remove URLs through that tool even if you don’t own the website. I’ve had a few cases where a dev version of a site was indexed by accident, and I used the Google removal tool to remove the pages that were still indexed.