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 Long Does a Successful SEO Migration Actually Take?
John Mueller mentioned during a webmaster hangout that if everything was done properly on a website, a migration could be very quick in terms of SEO, in the order of a few days (a day or two, accordin...
John Mueller Jul 02, 2019
★★★ Does lazy loading really kill your image indexing?
To use deferred image loading without affecting indexing, adopt research-compatible deferment methods, such as the specific Chrome attribute for lazy loading....
John Mueller Jun 28, 2019
★★★ Should you really return a 404 or 410 for expired job postings?
For pages of expired job listings, it is appropriate to return a 404 or 410 status. The indexing API can also be used to indicate that a job is no longer available....
John Mueller Jun 28, 2019
★★★ Does the mobile version of your site really determine your desktop ranking?
With mobile-first indexing, only the mobile version of the page is indexed and used for search results, both mobile and desktop. This means that content present only on mobile can impact results for b...
John Mueller Jun 28, 2019
★★★ How can you speed up the removal of unnecessary content from Google?
The process of bulk de-indexing can take time, especially for content that is rarely explored. Adding noindex directives can accelerate de-indexing....
John Mueller Jun 27, 2019
★★★ Do Duplicate Hn Tags (Desktop/Mobile) Actually Hurt Your SEO Rankings?
We noticed, when analyzing certain websites, that some templates and CMS platforms (especially when using a "builder") create duplicate Hn tags: one version for desktop, another for mobile. We therefo...
Google Jun 25, 2019
★★★ Should Every Page Really Have a Canonical Tag, Even When It Points to Itself?
John Mueller indicated during a webmaster hangout that while the "self canonical" technique (implementing a "canonical" tag pointing to the page's own URL to avoid DUST) wasn't entirely mandatory, it ...
John Mueller Jun 25, 2019
★★★ Can Dynamic Rendering Hurt Your SEO Due to Timeout Issues?
Martin Splitt explained on Twitter that when a site uses dynamic rendering, it's important to ensure that the page rendering time isn't too long, to avoid a timeout on the search engine side, which wo...
Martin Splitt Jun 11, 2019
★★ How Does the Mobile First Index Transition Work Based on Your Site Architecture?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that the transition to the Mobile First Index happens based on the domain name. So if a site uses addresses with subdomains (example: blog.example.com) and the addres...
John Mueller Jun 11, 2019
★★ Does Google's URL Parameters Tool Actually Deindex Pages?
John Mueller reminded us in a recent hangout that the URL parameter handling tool in the old Search Console (a tool not yet transferred to the new version but still fully operational) doesn't specific...
John Mueller Jun 03, 2019
★★★ Which Dates Does Google Actually Use to Rank Your Pages?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google can take into account two types of dates: the one indicated in the XML Sitemap ("lastmod" field or last modified date) which corresponds to the last modif...
John Mueller May 02, 2019
★★ Should You Ditch the Noindex Directive in Robots.txt Before It's Too Late?
John Mueller and Gary Illyes recently discussed on Twitter the use of "Noindex:" in the robots.txt file. Let's remember that as of today, this feature works, but it is not maintained by Google and is ...
John Mueller Apr 23, 2019
★★★ Does More Frequent Crawling Really Improve Your Site's SEO Rankings?
John Mueller explained once again on Reddit that if a site is crawled more often at a given time, this is not necessarily a sign that other things (such as the ranking of its pages on the search engin...
John Mueller Apr 15, 2019
★★★ Should You Really Trust Google's Cache Date to Monitor Your Page Indexation?
When viewing a page in its "cached" version (via the appropriate link in the SERP or through the "cache:" query), Google displays a phrase like this: "This is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on ...
John Mueller Apr 15, 2019
★★★ Does a 301 Redirect from a Low-Quality Page Penalize the Destination Page?
John Mueller explained in a webmaster hangout that if page A, offering low-quality content, is ultimately redirected to page B, which is of good quality, this will not negatively influence B.......
John Mueller Apr 02, 2019
★★★ Why Does Google Keep Crawling 404 Error Pages Even After Months?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that if a URL does not correspond to a web page on a site, a 404 - Not found code (or 410: Gone) provides a logical signal to Google. A 500 code (Internal Server Erro...
John Mueller Mar 18, 2019
★★★ Can You Really Create a Search Console Property for a Non-Indexed Site?
John Mueller indicated on Twitter that, in principle, a website does not need to be indexed on the search engine to create a Search Console property at its address. Theoretically, you can therefore re...
John Mueller Feb 18, 2019
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Frequently Switching Pages Between Index and Noindex?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that you shouldn't switch too often, for the same page, from a "noindex" version to an "index" version for the meta robots tag. This can confuse Google's analysis and...
John Mueller Feb 18, 2019
★★★ Does the Google Sandbox Really Exist for New Pages?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that there is no "sandbox" on Google that would deprive a newly created page of certain rankings before a certain period of time. On this subject, his response was fa...
John Mueller Feb 11, 2019
★★★ Can You Really Trust Google Search Console's Mobile Data to Guide Your SEO Strategy?
We asked Vincent Courson whether the data from the new Search Console regarding mobile compatibility was only samples. Because, most often, the number of pages indicated (sum of mobile-compatible page...
Google Feb 04, 2019
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