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- March 24, 2025
Launching a site with 100,000+ URLs is a reality check. Just because the pages exist, it does not mean Google will rush to index them. I have seen it so many times – people assume submitting a sitemap means instant results. It does not. Google does not trust new sites at scale.
Most of those pages will sit in “Discovered – not indexed” or “Crawled – currently not indexed” for weeks, sometimes months. No external signals, no trust, no history – Google holds back because it can. Even when everything is technically perfect, it still picks and chooses what it wants.
And trust me, I have tested the hell out of this. I have built entire sites listing every postcode, town, city, and business in the UK, complete with structured data and local intent. Did not matter. Google refused to index the majority of it. It is not just about thin content. Google knows when something is mass-generated, and unless the site has authority and demand, it will not waste its resources indexing it.
New websites start from nothing. No trust, no backlinks, no external validation. Google does not just allocate massive crawl resources to a site because it has a big sitemap. The first pages it crawls set the tone, and if those look low-value, it assumes the rest of the site is the same.
I have seen this mistake over and over. Googlebot spends its limited crawl budget on useless pages, like filter URLs or near-duplicate product variations, instead of the high-value pages that actually need indexing. The moment Google sets a pattern of deprioritising a site, you are in for a long ride.
What does that mean?
Google is selective. It does not care if your sitemap has 100,000 URLs. It will not index them just because you want it to.
If you are running a big site, you cannot afford to screw up your XML sitemaps. I have seen massive sitemaps get completely ignored. Search Console might let you submit up to 50,000 URLs per sitemap, but that does not mean Google will process them properly.
Best way to handle it? Break sitemaps down into 10,000 URL chunks, categorised logically, with a sitemap index file linking them. If a site has different sections like products, categories, locations, or services, split them accordingly. Makes it easier to track what is getting indexed and what is being ignored.
Internal linking is just as important. If a page is buried five clicks deep, Googlebot will not prioritise it. Even if it is in the sitemap, that is just a suggestion – it is not a guarantee that Google will crawl it.
I have worked on sites where Google wasted its time crawling junk pages instead of high-priority content. Without a clear internal link structure guiding the crawl, indexing takes a hit.
I know because I have tried it. Multiple times.
I have built fully automated, programmatically generated sites targeting every possible location-based query. I am talking about full-scale directory builds, mass business listings, dynamically generated content that should, in theory, provide value. Google still ignored 80 percent of it.
Even when the pages had unique user-generated elements, structured data, and genuine local intent, indexing remained slow. The problem is not just duplication – it is intent. If there is no external validation, Google will not see those pages as necessary.
I have seen people try to fix this by throttling the publishing schedule, thinking that rolling out content slowly will make a difference. It does not. If Google does not want to index something, it will not, no matter how carefully you time the release.
If mass programmatic content worked at scale, every large site would do it. But what actually works is a balance of curation, structured internal linking, and strong authority signals.
Google does not tell you everything in Search Console. I have seen it miss huge portions of a site, even when it claims to have crawled everything. That is why server logs are essential.
I built my own log analysis tools to see exactly what Googlebot is doing in real-time. The logs show what pages are actually being crawled, what is being skipped, and whether Google is wasting time on useless URLs.
I have had cases where Google was ignoring core category pages while repeatedly crawling low-value filter pages. Search Console did not flag anything, but the logs told the real story. Without this level of tracking, you are flying blind.
If you launch a site with 100,000+ URLs, do not expect everything to be indexed in weeks. Google takes time. It wants to see demand, trust signals, and a clear reason to index more content over time.
What actually works?
I have worked on sites where 100,000 URLs were live, but only 5,000 got indexed in the first six months. No backlinks, no demand, and no real reason for Google to care. If you want Google to index a large site, you have to earn it.
I have tested every shortcut possible. Bulk sitemap submissions, structured data hacks, even attempts to manipulate crawl priority through robots.txt tricks. None of it worked without trust and authority. Google indexes value, not volume.
And if you are thinking of launching a massive programmatic site listing every postcode, every city, every service variation – be prepared for a rough time. I have been there. It does not work like it used to.
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