WordPress: bulk-submit your archive to Google after a redesign
After a WordPress redesign changes your permalinks, bulk-submit every affected URL through Google's Indexing API in one batch so Google re-crawls the 301s quickly and keeps the link equity, instead of slowly dropping the old URLs from the index. Export your URL list, push the whole archive at once, then check status to confirm the rollover.
A WordPress redesign almost always touches URLs. Maybe you switched permalink structure from /year/month/post to /post. Maybe you collapsed a tag taxonomy. Maybe you finally moved off /index.php?p=. Whatever the reason, every redirected URL is a fresh chance for Google to either follow the 301 quickly or drop the old URL from the index and lose the link equity.
The right post-redesign indexing flow
- Confirm every old URL 301s to the new one. Spot-check with curl -I or the URL Inspection API.
- Regenerate your sitemap (Yoast, Rank Math, and SEO Press all expose /sitemap_index.xml).
- Open IndexerNow, sign in, and use the Sitemap picker to pull every new URL into the textarea.
- Submit the batch. The free indexer tier covers 15/day; a $9.99 pack covers 50, and you can stack packs.
- After 24 hours, run the same URL list through the Status tab to see which ones Google has re-crawled at the new address.
Why sitemap pinging alone isn't enough
Submitting a sitemap tells Google "this URL exists." The Indexing API tells Google "this URL changed, please crawl it now." For a redesign — where every page literally did change — the second signal is the one that matters. Sitemaps are passive; indexing pushes are active.
If your redirect map has gaps, the Indexing API will happily push a URL that returns 404. Google then files the URL under "Not found" and may take weeks to retry. Run a quick crawl with a free tool (or our sitemap picker, which fetches every URL) before submitting.
Handling huge WordPress archives
If you have 2,000 posts, you can't push them all in one day — Google's per-project Indexing API cap is 200 publishes per 24 hours, and per-user free + paid caps stack on top. The sane workflow:
- Prioritize URLs by traffic in Search Console (last 28 days, top 200).
- Push the high-traffic set first — same day as the redesign.
- Spread the long tail across the next week, 50-150 URLs per day.
- Use the Status tab daily to skip URLs Google has already re-crawled — no point re-pushing.
Plugins are not a substitute
Many WordPress "instant indexing" plugins use a single shared service account, which Google rate-limits heavily and frequently blocks. IndexerNow uses your own OAuth grant against your own properties, which means your indexing quota is yours alone and doesn't depend on a stranger's project staying in good standing.
Sign in with Google, paste your URLs, ship them through Google's Indexing API. Free daily quota, $9.99 for a 50-URL pack.
Try IndexerNow free