Getting your site found on Google (and Bing)
Every time you publish, Electbase automatically tells Bing and Yandex your site changed — you don't have to do anything. Google doesn't accept that kind of automatic notice from anyone, so getting into Google search takes one manual, five-minute step.
The short version: every time you publish, Electbase automatically tells Bing and Yandex your site changed — you don't have to do anything. Google doesn't accept that kind of automatic notice from anyone, so getting into Google search specifically takes one manual, five-minute step. Here's exactly what happens on our side and what's left for you to do.
What Electbase does automatically, every publish
Two things happen the instant your site goes live, with no setup from you:
- A sitemap.xml listing every page on your site, so any search engine that visits knows exactly what's there.
- An IndexNow notification — a direct "hey, this changed" ping to Bing and Yandex (they're the two IndexNow supports). This is the active half: instead of waiting for a search engine to happen by, we tell it the moment you publish.
Both happen on every publish, not just the first one — so an edit gets the same fast notice a brand-new site does.
Google: the one manual step
Google doesn't participate in IndexNow, and there's no free automatic way to submit a general page to it — the closest thing Google offers (their Indexing API) is restricted to job listings and livestream pages, not campaign sites. So getting into Google search takes one manual step, and you only need to do it once:
- Go to Google Search Console and sign in with any Google account.
- Choose Add property, enter your site's address (your
yourname.electbase.comaddress, or your custom domain if you've connected one — either works), and verify ownership. Google offers several verification methods and walks you through them on screen — the exact steps depend on the kind of address you entered, so follow Search Console's instructions for your setup. - Once verified, open Sitemaps in the left sidebar, and submit
sitemap.xml— Electbase already publishes it at your site's root, so you just paste insitemap.xmland hit submit.
That's it. Google typically starts showing your pages in search results within a few days to a couple of weeks, faster if your site already has some traffic or inbound links.
Do I need to do anything if I switch to a custom domain?
Just repeat the Search Console step for the new domain — verification and sitemap submission are per-address, so a custom domain needs its own even though your content stays the same. Your old subdomain redirects to the new one automatically, so nothing breaks in the meantime; see Your campaign's domain and email, explained.
Why this matters for a campaign
Search visibility compounds slowly — the earlier your site is indexed, the more time it has to show up when a voter searches your name before election day. Doing the five-minute Search Console step in your first week is worth more than doing it the week before the election.
Stuck on verification, or not seeing your pages after a few weeks? Contact us and we'll walk through it with you.