Google's John Mueller: New Sites Need Time Before Search Recognizes Their Unique Value

Google's John Mueller said Google Search can take some time to understand the "unique value" of a new site and only then rank it accordingly. He made the comment on Bluesky, replying to a question about a recently launched site that wasn't being fully indexed as quickly as expected.

The exchange was reported by Search Engine Roundtable in a post published on November 10. The person asking said every indexing request submitted in Google Search Console failed with the message "Oops! Something went wrong.", including the first attempt of the day, on November 1, 8 and 9. According to the account, there was no quota exceeded warning, no manual actions, and the sitemaps had been discovered without issue, with 644 URLs.

What Mueller said

"It's a relatively new site, and you've been busy with content. It can take time for systems to understand the unique value of all of that," Mueller wrote. He then added: "so it's good to make sure it's really top-notch (quality over quantity)."

He also recommended focusing on normal crawling and indexing rather than worrying about the Search Console feature for requesting indexing. As for the reported error, he said he would pass the information along. As the report reads it, the answer is that new sites simply take time.

Google has discouraged using indexing requests as a way to force a page into the index in the past.

What this means for brand teams

For a brand launching a website, slow indexing doesn't on its own point to a problem: Google treats understanding the value of a new site as a process that takes time. Mueller's guidance is to prioritize content quality over publishing volume and let crawling run its normal course, instead of repeatedly submitting manual indexing requests.