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Services like tumblr, github pages, quora blogs, etc. make new subdomains when a user signs up or makes a site.

So the subdomains are like: blogname.tumblr.com , pagename.github.io, blogname.quora.com, etc.

How do google and other search engines find out about these new sites? Is it as simple as having a sitemap.xml file being "resubmitted" to google?

See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en. I know that you can resubmit sitemaps to google via an HTTP request, but what about for new sites without a previously submitted sitemap?

Or do the owners of the subdomain (the user who set up the new site) have to submit their site manually via https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url ?

Just getting started learning about SEO and how google crawls the web. Couldn't find anything that answer this (or I'm just bad at Google), hoping someone can answer. Thanks!

Edit: I read through this: Why isn't my website in Google search results? But the question still holds for sites where subdomains are generated dynamically.

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  • Dynamic means nothing. Links and sitemaps can be created dynamically as well. – John Conde Dec 12 '13 at 21:10
  • @JohnConde Yes they can be generated dynamically. But what if I just set up myblog.tumblr.com and there are no other sites linking to it. Would there be something tumblr does to tell google that 'myblog.tumblr.com' now exists? – user173326 Dec 12 '13 at 21:14
  • A new site might not have any other links but there are other ways to let search engines know a site exists as you read in that thread. How individual sites handle this is up to them. Some actively promote new content, some rely on the owners of that content to promote themselves. – John Conde Dec 12 '13 at 21:16
  • Thanks, I think I got it now. So if I'm understanding correctly, a site like tumblr wouldn't tell google directly that there's a new subdomain. It would get picked up through other means. – user173326 Dec 12 '13 at 21:21
  • It their specific case I believe the answer is yes. – John Conde Dec 12 '13 at 21:23
  • One last thing... From here https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183669?hl=en it says you can 'resubmit' a sitemap file by 'pinging' google. But it seems that to do an initial submission you need to do this manually. However, if google actually processes the 'resubmission ping' regardless of there being a previously submitted sitemap, then I guess that would be 1 way for a site like tumblr to inform google. – user173326 Dec 12 '13 at 21:27
  • They certainly could do that if they chose to but a site like Tumblr probably doesn't have to ping Google as their sitemap is almost certainly consumed daily or even multiple times a day. – John Conde Dec 12 '13 at 21:30

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