A new rental website can't rank for anything until search engines know it exists and can read it. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are the free dashboards where you tell them about your site and see what they think of it. Setting both up takes under an hour and saves a lot of guessing later.

Google Search ConsoleVerify the domainSubmit sitemap.xmlInspect key URLsWatch Pages and Performance
Bing Webmaster ToolsImport from Google or verifySubmit sitemap.xmlCheck URL inspectionUse IndexNow for updates
One sitemap, two search engines. Both are free to set up.

Google Search Console

Add your site as a Domain property if you can. It's verified with a TXT record at your domain registrar and covers every version of the site, with and without www, on http and https. A URL-prefix property is quicker to verify with an HTML tag or file, but only covers that exact address. Once verified, go to Sitemaps and submit your sitemap.xml, usually at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

Then use URL Inspection on your homepage and two or three vehicle pages. It shows whether Google has indexed the page, which canonical URL it chose, and whether it could render it. If a page isn't indexed yet, you can request indexing. It's a request, not a guarantee; new sites often wait days or weeks.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing lets you import a site you've already verified in Search Console, which is the fastest route. Otherwise verify with an XML file, a meta tag, or a DNS record. Submit the same sitemap. Bing also supports IndexNow, a protocol that tells participating search engines the moment a page changes, so updated vehicle pages get picked up sooner. Bing matters beyond its own search share: its index feeds other search products and assistants.

The Reports Worth Reading

  • Pages (indexing): which URLs are indexed, and why others aren't
  • Performance: the searches you appear for, impressions, clicks, and average position
  • Sitemaps: whether your sitemap was read and how many URLs it found
  • Core Web Vitals and HTTPS: speed and security problems on real visits
  • Enhancements: errors in breadcrumbs and other structured data

"Discovered, currently not indexed" usually means Google knows a page exists but hasn't prioritized crawling it. Linking to that page from pages that are already indexed is the most reliable fix. "Crawled, currently not indexed" usually means Google read the page and didn't think it added enough; improving the content helps more than resubmitting it.

Don't Forget Analytics

Search Console tells you how people find you; Google Analytics 4 tells you what they do next. Track booking button clicks, phone and email clicks, and form submissions, and link GA4 to Search Console so you can see which searches lead to inquiries. Keep test traffic out of the reports, or your numbers will flatter you.

Search Console also gets more useful with schema in place; our guide to schema markup for car rental websites explains what to add.

Every DRW managed website is verified in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, with the sitemap submitted and GA4 tracking booking, phone, and email clicks before launch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Verify it in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap.xml, and inspect your key pages. Make sure robots.txt doesn't block them and that other sites and your own pages link to them.

Yes. It's free, takes minutes if you import from Google, and Bing's index is used by more than Bing itself. IndexNow also gets your updates picked up faster.

Common reasons: the site is new, the page has few internal links, it's blocked by robots.txt or a noindex tag, or Google considers it thin or duplicate. URL Inspection in Search Console shows which.

Monthly is enough for most rental businesses, plus a check after any big change to the site, such as a redesign or new pages.