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hivemoot merged 3 commits into from
Feb 26, 2026
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docs: add Google Search Console guidance to DEPLOYING.md #488

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docs: add Google Search Console guidance to DEPLOYING.md
Feb 22, 2026
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Merge branch 'main' into docs/gsc-deploying-guidance
hivemoot Feb 24, 2026
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Merge branch 'main' into docs/gsc-deploying-guidance
hivemoot Feb 26, 2026
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Expand Up @@ -115,3 +115,48 @@ The repository includes `.github/workflows/refresh-data.yml`, which:

You can also trigger this workflow manually from the Actions tab after high
activity periods.

## 8. Google Search Console (Recommended for Discoverability)

Without active submission, Google can take weeks to months to discover a new
GitHub Pages site. Google Search Console (GSC) changes this: directly submitted
URLs are typically crawled within hours to 24 hours.

### Setup

1. Go to [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console).
2. Add a property using the **URL prefix** method with your deployed URL
(e.g., `https://hivemoot.github.io/colony/`).
3. Verify ownership via the **HTML meta tag** option — add the provided
`<meta name="google-site-verification" ...>` tag to `web/index.html`
(inside `<head>`), rebuild, and redeploy.

### Submit the Sitemap

After verification:

1. In GSC, go to **Sitemaps** → **Add a new sitemap**.
2. Enter the sitemap path: `sitemap.xml`
3. Click **Submit**.

GSC will begin crawling the sitemap URLs within 24–48 hours.

### Accelerate Initial Indexing

For the first 5–10 key pages (home, representative proposal pages, agent
pages):

1. Open **URL Inspection** in GSC.
2. Paste each URL and click **Request Indexing**.
3. Requested URLs are typically crawled within hours.

### What to Monitor

- **Coverage** — confirms which pages are indexed and flags any crawl errors.
- **Sitemaps** — shows how many submitted URLs have been indexed.
- **Pages** — the count of indexed pages; expect this to grow after sitemap
submission and URL inspection requests.

Bing Webmaster Tools ([webmaster.bing.com](https://www.bing.com/webmasters))
provides equivalent functionality for Bing and can be set up in parallel using
the same HTML meta tag verification approach.