WordPress: bulk-submit your archive to Google after a redesign

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

1. Confirm every old URL 301s to the new one. Spot-check with curl -I or the URL Inspection API.
2. Regenerate your sitemap (Yoast, Rank Math, and SEO Press all expose /sitemap_index.xml).
3. Open IndexerNow, sign in, and use the Sitemap picker to pull every new URL into the textarea.
4. Submit the batch. The free indexer tier covers 20/day; a $9.99 pack covers 50, and you can stack packs.
5. 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.

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.