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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★★★ How does Google really transfer signals during a domain migration?
When Google crawls the old site and detects the redirects, it checks that the new site is a one-to-one copy of the old one. If that's the case, signals from the old domain are transferred to the new d...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★★ Should you really use Google Search Console's address change tool during a migration?
The address change tool in Search Console explicitly tells Google that a migration is intentional and not temporary or accidental. This additional signal allows Google to reprioritize the crawl, make ...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★★ Merging two websites: Why doesn’t Google treat this like a standard migration?
Merging two websites into one is not a standard site migration. It involves creating a new site that combines two existing versions, which requires Google to re-crawl numerous pages. The outcome and p...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★ Should you really leave the robots.txt file unchanged during an SEO migration?
Do not change the configuration of the robots.txt file during a migration. If certain URLs were blocked by robots.txt for good reasons before the migration, they must remain blocked after the migratio...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★ How long does it really take to transfer SEO signals during a migration?
The speed of signal transfer depends on the site's crawl budget, crawl frequency, and the number of external links. This can take anywhere from one day to several weeks depending on these factors. Sit...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★★ Should you really redirect all images during a site migration?
It is essential to implement 301 redirects for all images during a site migration. Visual content is very important for SEO. Since refreshing in the image index takes time, you should monitor the serv...
Martin Splitt Aug 27, 2020
★★★ How Does Google Actually Determine the Canonical URL of Your Pages?
John Mueller provided on Twitter a list of criteria that Google takes into account to define what the canonical URL of a page is (and therefore its "canonicalization"): redirects, internal links, exte...
John Mueller Aug 24, 2020
★★★ Does the Mobile First Index Really Apply Automatically to New Websites?
Google indicated in May 2019 that starting from July 1st of that same year, all new sites discovered by the search engine's crawlers would automatically be integrated into the Mobile First Index. John...
John Mueller Aug 24, 2020
★★★ Should You Index Automatically Translated Content Without Human Review?
Gary Illyes indicated on Twitter that the official recommendation was not to index content that would be translated automatically (with software/algorithm like GPT-3) without subsequent human review. ...
Gary Illyes Aug 24, 2020
★★ Do security alerts in Search Console really block Google's crawling?
Security alerts in Search Console (malware, phishing, hacked site) do not affect how Google crawls the site, but they can impact the display of pages in search results. Google remains cautious about w...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★ Can automated DMCA complaints harm your visibility on Google?
Some large content providers automatically crawl the web and file DMCA complaints in an automated manner, generating a very high volume of DMCA requests each day. Google processes these complaints but...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Why does Google require a canonical on ALL AMP pages, including standalone ones?
All AMP pages must have a rel=canonical, whether they are connected to a traditional HTML version or are standalone AMP pages. In the case of standalone AMP, the canonical points to the page itself....
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Should you really index all paged pages to optimize your SEO?
For pagination, all pages should be indexable if they contain important content or links. They must be connected with standard HTML links (next/previous). Google can crawl and index these pages withou...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Should you still fill in the priority and changefreq attributes in your XML sitemaps?
Google does not use the priority or changefreq attributes in sitemap files. Only the URL and the lastmod date are taken into account. Priority has been ignored because websites filled it out in a non-...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★ Can Google really treat URL changes made by JavaScript and the History API as redirects?
When JavaScript uses the History API to modify the URL after loading (e.g., simplifying parameters), Google may interpret this as a redirect to the new URL and choose it as canonical. This can be veri...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★ Is it really necessary to eliminate all duplicate content or should you rely on rel=canonical?
Completely eliminating duplicates is impractical for most sites, as it's normal on the web. Using rel=canonical helps Google focus on the main content. Both approaches (manual reduction + canonicaliza...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★ Can a hacked site lose its crawl budget due to Google security alerts?
A hacked site with malware or phishing reported in Search Console will not see its crawl reduced. The impact is on display in the search results (warnings, filtering), not on the frequency or intensit...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Is the rel=canonical really mandatory on all AMP pages, even standalone ones?
For paired AMPs (classic page + AMP), the canonical is required. For standalone AMPs (no classic version), the page must canonicalize to itself. This rule is independent of hreflang and translations....
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Are URL parameters really a non-issue for SEO anymore?
URL parameters have not been an SEO problem for a long time. Google automatically handles the canonicalization of URLs with parameters. The parameter management tool is only useful for sites with tens...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
★★★ Does nofollow really block indexing, or can Google still crawl those URLs?
Google can now follow nofollow links to discover new URLs and potentially index them. However, the passing of PageRank and ranking signals through nofollow remains independent and is not guaranteed: j...
John Mueller Aug 21, 2020
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