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.
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★★★ Is it true that passages serve as a separate index in Google?
Passages are not a core update. Instead, they are about better ranking extracts from existing pages, recognizing that a large page can contain a particularly relevant part for a query. There is no sep...
John Mueller Oct 30, 2020
★★★ Should you really block the indexing of all your e-commerce facets?
For e-commerce facets and filters, the general recommendation is not to allow them to be indexed at all, unless these facet pages can truly stand alone as important category pages for the brand. Paged...
John Mueller Oct 30, 2020
★★★ Is server-side rendering truly the magic solution for JavaScript SEO?
Google recommends server-side rendering as a robust approach, but it is absolutely necessary to test with tools like Search Console, the mobile optimization test, or the rich results test to ensure th...
Martin Splitt Oct 30, 2020
★★★ Does Google really index HTTPS even with an invalid SSL certificate?
Google will switch to the HTTPS version as canonical even if the certificate is no longer valid, if critical elements are missing, or if mixed content generates warnings in the browser. All other sign...
John Mueller Oct 30, 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
★★ Why does Google still crawl your deleted old URLs?
Google occasionally continues to crawl old URLs (returning 404) for years, especially if they had backlinks or were important. It is at low priority and does not block normal site crawling....
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Why does blocking robots.txt prevent noindex from working?
You should not block noindex URLs in robots.txt, as this prevents Google from seeing the noindex directive, and these pages may stay indexed. Instead, use the URL Parameters Tool to reduce crawling of...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Should you return a 404 or a 200 on a product page that's out of stock?
For temporarily unavailable products, displaying a page with a 200 code and an email alert option is acceptable. If the unavailability is long, switching to a 404 allows Google to optimize the crawl b...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Should you really block cookie banners for Googlebot?
Blocking cookie banners for Googlebot is not considered cloaking and will not result in a manual penalty. In most cases, these banners are implemented in JavaScript or HTML, and Google can index the m...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★ Should you sync visible and technical dates to enhance your crawl?
The date displayed on the page should reflect major changes to the main content, not minor modifications (comments, sidebar). Dates in the sitemap or structured data can indicate any HTML change to si...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ How can you confirm if Google is truly indexing your lazy-loaded content?
To check if content is indexed, search for an exact phrase in quotes on Google. This is the ultimate proof that the content is indexed. The Inspect URL tool also allows you to view the fully rendered ...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★ Why does Google keep crawling your old 404 URLs?
Google continues to occasionally crawl old URLs that return 404, particularly if they had backlinks or were significant. This crawl is done at very low priority and does not block the crawl of new pag...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ How does Google really handle the separation of a site into two distinct entities?
Separating a site into two is not considered a domain migration by Google since a new state is being created. Using rel canonical followed by 301 redirects is an acceptable approach. It is essential t...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Do 302 redirects really pass PageRank like 301 redirects?
Google treats both 301 and 302 redirects similarly when it comes to the transmission of SEO signals. Both types of redirects pass PageRank and other signals. The difference mainly lies in the choice o...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Should you really return a 404 for products that are permanently unavailable?
For temporarily unavailable products, displaying a 200 page is acceptable. But for products that are permanently unavailable, using a 404 (or soft 404) status allows Google to crawl more efficiently b...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★ Is it true that Google still indexes Flash content, or should everything be migrated to pure HTML?
Google indexes pages with Flash solely based on the visible HTML content in the rendered DOM, not content within Flash files. The removal of Flash from browsers should not affect site traffic as Googl...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Should you really hide cookie consent banners from Googlebot?
Blocking Googlebot from cookie consent banners does not lead to a manual penalty, as long as the main content remains identical for users and for Google. Banners implemented in JavaScript or HTML abov...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★ Should you hide GDPR consent banners from Googlebot to avoid cloaking?
Excluding Googlebot from consent banners via user-agent could be interpreted as cloaking. However, if the banner is only shown to European users and Googlebot crawls from the USA, it won’t see it anyw...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★ Should you really show cookie banners to Googlebot?
Googlebot should ideally see what a normal user would see from the same location. Since Googlebot mainly crawls from the USA, if American users do not see a cookie banner, Googlebot does not need to s...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
★★★ Should you really use cross-domain canonicals to consolidate multiple thematic sites?
Using canonical tags across multiple domains (e.g., 25 thematic stores pointing to a main store) is technically correct. It avoids duplicate content but may redistribute SEO strength among the domains...
John Mueller Oct 29, 2020
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