PixelClaw publishes everything a search engine needs with each post, and most of the work is automatic. Google is the one engine that needs to hear about a new blog once. This guide shows what happens on its own, and where that one step is.
What your blog serves on its own
Every blog has its own address, such as yourname.pixelclaw.app or your custom domain, and serves these at that address without any setup:
robots.txt, which allows search engines and the AI search crawlers, and names your sitemap.
sitemap.xml, listing every published post with its last change. It updates as you publish.
feed.xml, an RSS feed of your posts, and llms.txt, a list of your posts for AI assistants.
On every post: a canonical address, a title and description, a share image and structured data that describes the article.
Check them yourself by opening yourname.pixelclaw.app/robots.txt and yourname.pixelclaw.app/sitemap.xml in a browser.
Bing, Yandex and others: IndexNow, automatic
IndexNow tells Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and other engines about a new or changed page the moment you publish. It is on by default on paid plans. Check it under Settings → Publishing → Crawlers and search engines: the switch reads IndexNow is on. New and changed pages will be sent as you publish. There is nothing else to do.
Google: automatic on pixelclaw.app, one step on your own domain
Google does not use IndexNow, and it only reads a sitemap on an address it already knows. For a blog at yourname.pixelclaw.app on a paid plan, PixelClaw sends your sitemap to Google itself after every publish, through its own Search Console ownership of pixelclaw.app. There is nothing to set up, and Google finds each new post from the sitemap on its own schedule.
Connect Search Console anyway if you want to see which searches bring readers in Analytics and in Research → Keywords: follow Connect Google Search Console and see search traffic. The verification code goes under Settings → Publishing → Crawlers and search engines → Prove the site is yours.
On a custom domain, Google only takes a sitemap from an owner of that domain, so do this once:
Verify the domain as a property in Google Search Console and connect it to PixelClaw, following the same guide.
In Analytics, on the Google Search Console card with your property chosen, select Sitemap. PixelClaw confirms with Sitemap sent to Google. It reads it again on its own from now on.
On every paid plan you can also add your own Google key under Settings → Publishing → Crawlers and search engines → Google Indexing API. PixelClaw then sends each page to Google as you publish, under your own Google Cloud project, so Google counts it against your project's allowance: 200 notifications a day unless Google raises it. PixelClaw's own allowance is never used for your blog. The service account has to be an Owner of your blog's property in Search Console; for a yourname.pixelclaw.app address, add it as a URL-prefix property and verify it with the HTML tag under Prove the site is yours. Without a key nothing goes to this API, and the sitemap still does the job. Google documents this API for job posting and livestream pages, so a notification asks Google to crawl, it does not promise indexing.
How long it takes, and how to check
A new site is usually crawled within days and indexed over the following weeks. Sites that other sites link to are faster. This is Google's pace, not PixelClaw's.
In Search Console, Pages shows what Google has indexed and URL inspection checks one address. In PixelClaw, Analytics → Searches that bring readers fills in once Google reports data, usually two to three days behind.
Search Google for site:yourname.pixelclaw.app to see what it has listed.
Custom domains
When you make a custom domain the primary address, the sitemap, canonical addresses and feeds move to it, and PixelClaw's automatic submission stops, because PixelClaw does not own your domain. Verify that domain as its own property in Search Console and send the sitemap from the Google Search Console card.
Why a post may not be indexed
It is still a draft, scheduled, or waiting under Needs review. Only published posts appear in the sitemap.
The blog is new and Google has not crawled it yet. Send the sitemap and give it time.
Google chose not to index a thin or duplicate page. The content score under Optimize shows what is missing.