What does Google say about SEO? /
The Crawl & Indexing category compiles all official Google statements regarding how Googlebot discovers, crawls, and indexes web pages. These fundamental processes determine which pages from your website will be included in Google's index and potentially appear in search results. This section addresses critical technical mechanisms: crawl budget management to optimize allocated resources, strategic implementation of robots.txt files to control content access, noindex directives for page exclusion, XML sitemap configuration to enhance discoverability, along with JavaScript rendering challenges and canonical URL implementation. Google's official positions on these topics are essential for SEO professionals as they help avoid technical blocking issues, accelerate new content indexation, and prevent unintentional deindexing. Understanding Google's crawling and indexing processes forms the foundation of any effective search engine optimization strategy, directly impacting organic visibility and SERP performance. Whether troubleshooting indexation problems, optimizing crawl efficiency for large websites, or ensuring proper URL canonicalization, these official guidelines provide authoritative answers to complex technical SEO questions that shape modern web presence and discoverability.
Quick SEO Quiz

Test your SEO knowledge in 5 questions

Less than a minute. Find out how much you really know about Google search.

🕒 ~1 min 🎯 5 questions
★★ Should you redirect WordPress attachment pages to media files for better SEO?
Redirecting WordPress attachment pages to media files likely does not impact SEO significantly, as Google typically does not index these attachment pages in a visible way. Images are indexed from the ...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★ How many EMDs can you buy without triggering a doorway page filter?
Buying multiple exact match domains (location + product) can be viewed as doorway pages by Google. For 10-15 domains, this is probably not a major issue. Beyond 100 or 1000 domains, the risk that Goog...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★ Can missing subfolders in a URL actually harm your pages' SEO?
It is not necessary for all subfolders of a URL to be functional. Google treats URLs as individual identifiers of content. If /play/movie exists but /play returns 404, this does not affect the indexin...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★ AVIF in Image SEO: Why Does Google Still Ignore This Format in Search Images?
AVIF is not listed in the public documentation for Image Search and is likely not supported at this time. Evergreen Googlebot can render these images for text-based web search, but not for Image Searc...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★★ How can you align all canonicalization signals to influence Google's choice?
To influence the choice of the canonical URL by Google, all canonicalization factors must be aligned: internal links, sitemap files, hreflang annotations, and other cross-links must all point to the U...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★★ Why does Google admit that the hreflang/canonical operation is intentionally confusing in Search Console?
Google groups international pages with the same content into a canonical cluster, selects a canonical URL, and then uses hreflang to display the appropriate URL based on the user's location. In Search...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★★ Why does Google sometimes ignore your 301 redirects and choose the old URL as canonical?
Even with 301 redirects in place for a long time, Google may choose the source URL over the target URL as the canonical URL. Google uses many factors (internal links, external links, sitemaps, annotat...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★★ Is the indexing request tool going to disappear from Search Console?
Google has no intention of removing the indexing request tool from Search Console. The aim is rather to improve automatic systems to reduce the need for manual use of this tool, except in exceptional ...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★ Does Google always index the canonical page before the source page?
There is no fixed order between indexing duplicate content and processing the canonical tag. Sometimes Google directly follows the canonical link and indexes the destination page; other times, it firs...
John Mueller Nov 10, 2020
★★★ Why Can Google Deindex 18,000 Pages in Just a Few Days Without It Being Abnormal?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter, in response to a webmaster who was surprised that, on a site he was managing, 18,000 URLs had been deindexed in a few days by Google, that this kind of thing could h...
John Mueller Nov 09, 2020
★★★ What happens when a page contains two conflicting canonical tags?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that if a page contains two "canonical" tags, each pointing to a different URL, this information will be considered "undefined" by Google and neither of the two tags ...
John Mueller Nov 09, 2020
★★★ Can a desktop-only site thrive under Mobile-First Indexing without a mobile version?
After the transition to Mobile-First Indexing, sites with only a desktop version continue to be indexed normally if the mobile crawler can explore them. They do not disappear from search results....
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★★ Why does Google choose not to index certain pages on your site?
Google does not guarantee the indexing of all URLs on a site. The quality and relevance of the content are important factors in determining which pages are indexed and displayed in the results....
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★ Does the type of Googlebot used really influence the indexing of your pages?
Whether a site is crawled by the desktop or mobile Googlebot does not affect its ability to be indexed and displayed in search results. The type of crawler used is not a determining factor for indexin...
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★★ Does mobile-first indexing really mean your site has to be mobile-friendly?
Mobile-First Indexing means that Google uses the mobile crawler to index and rank sites, but this does not mean that a site must be mobile-friendly. These are two different aspects of SEO....
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★ Could your hacked website be silently indexing spam without your knowledge?
When a site is hacked with cloaking, regular visitors see the original site, but Googlebot sees the modified content. It’s necessary to check the server configuration files, not just the HTML, to dete...
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★ Is the hidden content behind a click really indexed by Google?
The content present in the source code but displayed only after a user action (click) is indexed by Google. You can verify it by searching for the hidden text: if it appears in the results, it is inde...
Google Nov 05, 2020
★★ Should you really bundle your JavaScript files to preserve your crawl budget?
For JavaScript resources, use a single bundle instead of loading multiple JavaScript files to avoid wasting crawl budget. Pre-render resources if possible; otherwise, JavaScript resources remain accep...
Martin Splitt Oct 30, 2020
★★ Should we really consider Googlebot as a user with accessibility needs?
To explain SEO to developers, think of Googlebot as a user with assistive technology needs: it can’t really see, doesn’t necessarily understand text at first glance, and requires semantically rich dat...
Martin Splitt Oct 30, 2020
★★★ Can lazy loading block Google from indexing your content?
If a site requires scrolling to a certain position for content to load automatically, Google will not see that content. Google loads the page once and sees what is displayed without performing any spe...
John Mueller Oct 30, 2020
🔔

Get real-time analysis of the latest Google SEO declarations

Be the first to know every time a new official Google statement drops — with full expert analysis.

No spam. Unsubscribe in one click.