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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★★★ Has nofollow really become just a hint for Google?
From now on, nofollow link attributes will be considered as hints, rather than strict directives, which means that Google can choose to follow and index them. New attributes, rel='sponsored' and rel='...
Google Oct 02, 2019
★★★ Do You Really Have to Wait 24 Hours for a Crawl Rate Change to Take Effect?
John Mueller indicated that changing Googlebot's crawl rate via Search Console takes approximately one day to be taken into account....
John Mueller Sep 30, 2019
★★★ How Does Google Adjust Its Crawl Rate During a Server Migration?
John Mueller published a new #AskGoogleWebmasters video where he explains that the only thing that changes when you move a site from one server to another is the speed at which GoogleBot crawls that c...
John Mueller Sep 30, 2019
★★★ Should You Include a Date in Your Web Page URLs for Better SEO?
Google's webmaster Twitter account explained that including a date in web page URLs does not pose any problems....
Google Sep 30, 2019
★★ Are timed redirects reliable for SEO?
Googlebot may or may not capture timed redirects, like those that trigger after 30 seconds, which may not be seen as a reliable method....
John Mueller Sep 27, 2019
★★★ Can Googlebot really crawl user-initiated events?
Googlebot generally cannot explore user-initiated events such as SQL events or JavaScript events. To show this content to Googlebot, it is recommended to use dynamic rendering or HTML snapshots....
John Mueller Sep 27, 2019
★★ Does robots.txt really block indexing in Google?
Google can still suggest URLs in search results even if they are blocked by robots.txt, mainly if they are important for users, as illustrated by the AdWords login page....
John Mueller Sep 26, 2019
★★★ Should you really include the modification date in your XML sitemap?
Indicating a modification date for each URL in sitemap files allows Google to better understand when to re-scan content. Using a generic date for all URLs is less effective....
John Mueller Sep 26, 2019
★★ Is it true that your images are all indexable without a robots.txt file?
The absence of robots.txt files means Google can crawl images. An image redirection can lead to restrictions if the redirected destination is blocked....
John Mueller Sep 26, 2019
★★★ Does Googlebot really adjust its crawl rate during a server migration?
During a server migration, Googlebot automatically adjusts the crawl frequency to avoid overwhelming the new server. This process occurs automatically: Googlebot initially reduces its crawl speed and ...
John Mueller Sep 24, 2019
★★★ Is it true that mobile-first indexing applies to every site without exception?
Google is steadily transitioning sites to 'mobile-first indexing', with the goal of migrating all sites in the long run....
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ Should you host your images on a CDN subdomain to optimize their indexing?
It is acceptable to use CDNs like Amazon S3 to host images used in sitemaps, but it is advised to employ a subdomain for more flexible URL management in case of a CDN change....
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ Does JavaScript still hinder Google's crawling without server-side rendering?
Fully JavaScript sites must ensure they use distinct URLs and standard links. Google is getting better at crawling these sites, but compatibility should be ensured for proper indexing....
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ Do GDPR banners really block Googlebot from indexing your content?
Googlebot does not click on interstitials, so if content is hidden behind a cookie consent acceptance, it will not be indexed. It is advisable to show the banners without blocking the HTML content....
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ Why are robots.txt and noindex not enough to safeguard your staging servers?
To prevent Google from indexing staging servers, it is advisable to use server authentication rather than relying solely on a robots.txt file or a noindex meta tag, which can be forgotten during produ...
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ Should you still use nofollow to filter facet navigation crawl?
Nofollow tags continue to be used to indicate to search engines that certain pages or links are less important to crawl, especially for internal links in facet navigation....
John Mueller Sep 20, 2019
★★★ How Does Google Actually Choose Which Canonical URL to Index When Multiple Versions Exist?
John Mueller, in a new video from his #AskGoogleWebmasters channel, explains how Google selects canonical URLs. Indeed, in many cases, the search engine identifies a page offering given content (or si...
John Mueller Sep 09, 2019
★★★ Can 404 pages really clutter your Google index?
Pages that return a 404 error code are not indexed by Google. It is crucial to ensure that custom error pages actually return a 404 code and not a 200, as this could lead to poor indexing of those pag...
John Mueller Sep 06, 2019
★★★ Is it true that mobile-first indexing pushes desktop content out of Google’s spotlight?
Google primarily uses the mobile version of a page for indexing and ranking as part of mobile-first indexing. Content only present on the desktop version will not be indexed, which requires that the m...
John Mueller Sep 06, 2019
★★★ Does hreflang really outperform canonical in search results?
For multi-regional sites with the same content, Google uses hreflang annotations to show the appropriate version in search results based on the user's location, even if a different canonical URL is ch...
John Mueller Sep 06, 2019
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