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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★★★ Can mobile-first indexing hide your poorly linked product pages?
With mobile-first indexing, Google will only use the mobile version to index a site, which can affect poorly linked product pages....
John Mueller Nov 13, 2018
★★ Why is Google struggling to index your new content quickly?
It is possible to observe delays in the indexing of new stories. The issue may be temporary and is currently being addressed....
John Mueller Nov 13, 2018
★★★ Should You Really Use the Same Title Tag for Both Desktop and Mobile?
John Mueller advised on Twitter to use only one Title tag, identical for both desktop and mobile versions of a web page. And, within the framework of the Mobile First index, it's the mobile version's ...
John Mueller Nov 12, 2018
★★★ Can You Really Opt Out of Google's Mobile First Indexing?
John Mueller responded to a question on Twitter asking whether one could request not to be moved to the Mobile First Index. The answer was negative....
John Mueller Nov 12, 2018
★★ Do 301 Redirects Between Unrelated Pages Really Lose All Their PageRank?
John Mueller provided more information during a hangout on how a 301 redirect passes "link juice" (PageRank) from one page to another. He initially indicated, as was already known, that 301 and 302 re...
John Mueller Nov 05, 2018
★★★ Why Does Google's Structured Data Testing Tool Crawl Your Site in Desktop Mode Instead of Mobile?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that Google's structured data markup testing tool crawls the submitted URL as a "neutral" crawler, which is interpreted most of the time by the site as a "desktop" cr...
John Mueller Nov 05, 2018
★★★ How Does Googlebot Actually Interpret Your Website's JavaScript?
Google's Martin Splitt indicated during a hangout that there was still a gap between how current browsers (example: Chrome version 70) parsed and displayed a web page and how Googlebot saw it (more li...
Martin Splitt Nov 05, 2018
★★★ Does client-side rendering really pose a problem for SEO?
Client-side rendering is generally not an issue for SEO, unless content changes very quickly or the site is very large, which can lead to delays in indexing....
Martin Splitt Oct 31, 2018
★★★ Why does the Search Console's live test always use Googlebot Desktop?
The live test feature in the URL inspection tool currently uses Googlebot Desktop version to analyze your pages, including for sites that have already switched to mobile-first indexing....
Google Oct 31, 2018
★★★ Why does Google emphasize the importance of using <a> tags for links?
To ensure indexing by Google, it is advised to use 'a' tags for links instead of other elements like 'span' or 'div' which can cause crawling issues....
Martin Splitt Oct 31, 2018
★★★ How Does Google Actually Discover Your New Web Pages?
Gary Illyes indicated at the Pubcon event that the two main pathways Google considers for identifying new URLs to crawl are first the tracking of hyperlinks by its bots, and secondly XML Sitemap files...
Gary Illyes Oct 29, 2018
★★★ Why Does Google Take Several Weeks to Index Some Web Pages?
We know that the Google search engine no longer just reads the HTML code of pages in a basic way as it did years ago, but tries to analyze web pages as if they were displayed in a browser. This "rende...
Gary Illyes Oct 23, 2018
★★★ Why Is Your SPA Struggling to Get Indexed Despite SSR?
John Mueller advises focusing on improving the overall quality of a site with many unindexed pages. Even with server-side rendering, indexing depends on the value that Google perceives in the site's c...
John Mueller Oct 19, 2018
★★★ Is it true that no mobile-first notification means your site is ready?
John Mueller indicates that not receiving a mobile-first indexing notification does not necessarily mean that the site is unprepared for this type of indexing. Google is deploying this feature gradual...
John Mueller Oct 19, 2018
★★★ Should you block the indexing of your internal search engine?
Google does not actively submit queries to internal search engines on sites. It is important to manage the indexing of pages generated by search to avoid an infinite space of URLs, focusing on high-pr...
John Mueller Oct 19, 2018
★★ Should you really compress your sitemap files using gzip?
Using gzip compression for sitemap files is recommended to save bandwidth. It does not improve the speed of processing by Google, but it is beneficial from a resource management perspective....
John Mueller Oct 19, 2018
★★★ Can you over-optimize your homepage to the point where Google prefers to rank another page on your site?
Over-optimizing with keywords on the homepage can lead Google to rank a more relevant page on the site. It is advisable to monitor the use of keywords and balance the information provided to avoid bei...
John Mueller Oct 19, 2018
★★ Do you really need to optimize all your images for Google Images?
When using lazy loading, if the images are purely decorative and not crucial for indexing, there is no need to make them visible for Google Images....
John Mueller Oct 18, 2018
★★★ Does JavaScript really block Google from indexing your pages?
For Google to index content generated by JavaScript, it must be able to execute the JavaScript on the page. If certain elements do not load correctly, it may pose a problem for SEO....
John Mueller Oct 18, 2018
★★★ Should you really fix all 404 errors in Search Console?
The new version of Search Console emphasizes URLs likely to be indexed. For example, 404 errors do not always require fixing if they concern irrelevant URLs....
John Mueller Oct 18, 2018
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