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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★★ Should you really submit your URLs to Google manually?
Manually submitting URLs via Google Search Console is generally unnecessary for most sites, except in cases of urgent updates. Instead, use sitemaps and a clear internal linking structure....
John Mueller Mar 06, 2018
★★★ Can Google ignore your site if your products are already listed elsewhere?
If multiple sites contain the same products and descriptions with no notable differences, Google may choose to index only one. Add unique content to make each site distinct....
John Mueller Mar 06, 2018
★★★ Does Page Speed Really Impact Google's Mobile First Indexing?
John Mueller explained on Twitter that the Mobile First index and the page loading speed criterion were two separate things. Indexing and page ranking should not be confused, as some believe, especial...
John Mueller Mar 05, 2018
★★★ How Does Googlebot Really Crawl Your Website?
John Mueller published a video last week (the first "SEO Snippet" - videos succeeding those of Matt Cutts - since their launch), explaining how Google crawls a website and the way Googlebot works....
John Mueller Mar 05, 2018
★★ Does Googlebot really adjust its crawl based on your server’s capacity?
Googlebot tries to be courteous by limiting itself to a certain number of pages each day, automatically adjusting this number based on the recognized capacity of a site....
John Mueller Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Can A/B testing really harm your organic SEO?
To minimize search impact during A/B testing, avoid cloaking, use canonical tags to your main version, and limit test duration. Google recognizes A/B tests when conducted correctly....
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Why does Google offer two crawlers in the URL Inspection Tool?
Google provides both PC and mobile user-agents in the URL Inspection Tool, allowing you to see how your site is rendered on both device types. With mobile-first indexing, the mobile crawler informatio...
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Does Googlebot really crawl your important pages every few days?
Googlebot attempts to crawl important pages more frequently to ensure that the most critical pages are covered, often every few days or more frequently depending on the site....
John Mueller Feb 28, 2018
★★ Why are your dynamically generated sitemaps not being processed by Google?
If dynamically generated sitemaps are not being processed as expected, ensure there are no server issues and that the sitemap URLs are accessible by Googlebot without restrictions....
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ How can the Index Coverage Report from Search Console expose your SEO blind spots?
The Index Coverage Report in the new Search Console offers detailed information about which URLs are being indexed and any issues found, such as crawl errors or excluded URLs....
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Do modern JavaScript frameworks really harm your site's SEO?
The Googlebot must correctly render pages that are unavailable using modern frameworks like AngularJS or ReactJS for SEO to be effective. Tools like Fetch as Google in the Search Console help verify r...
Vincent Courson Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Why does a noindex page continue to show up in Google's index?
If a page set to noindex is still indexed, verify that it's not being blocked by robots.txt, as this prevents Google from seeing the noindex tag. Remove the block temporarily to allow crawling....
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Is it really true that desktop-only content will disappear with mobile-first indexing?
Google assures that PC-only content will continue to appear in search results even after the roll-out of mobile-first indexing. There is no need to remove or no-index PC pages just because their mobil...
Google Feb 28, 2018
★★★ Do old 301 redirects really hurt your SEO?
Inherited 301 redirects, even if they are several years old, do not negatively affect a site's SEO as long as they still exist in Google's index. Google's systems may have a long memory, but this gene...
John Mueller Feb 23, 2018
★★ Do you really need a sitemap for a small, stable site?
Sitemaps are especially useful for large sites that change frequently, but they are not essential for small, stable sites. Nevertheless, using one remains a good practice to indicate important URLs to...
John Mueller Feb 23, 2018
★★★ Could technical problems truly explain why you're not ranking?
Technical problems, such as the non-indexation of recent content, can be reasons why a site is not ranking well. It is advisable to check if web scraping is occurring correctly and if the content is s...
John Mueller Feb 23, 2018
★★★ Does Google truly consider hidden mobile content in its indexing?
In mobile-first indexing, hidden content for UX reasons is fully counted. Google deploys algorithms to differentiate between abusive practices and normal uses of hidden content....
John Mueller Feb 23, 2018
★★★ Are 301 redirects and canonical tags truly equivalent methods for consolidating your SEO signals?
In SEO, redirecting multiple pages to a single URL can be helpful for concentrating SEO signals. A 301 redirect is similar to using a canonical tag in terms of how Google processes the URL, but each m...
John Mueller Feb 23, 2018
★★★ How will mobile-first indexing truly affect your SEO strategy?
Google plans to inform webmasters through Search Console when their site switches to mobile-first indexing. It is vital for sites with separate mobile versions to understand how this will impact them....
John Mueller Feb 22, 2018
★★ Are Umlauts and special characters in URLs really safe for SEO?
Special characters like Umlauts are well managed in URLs by Google. In theory, they do not pose a problem for indexing and ranking, but users may process them differently in searches....
John Mueller Feb 22, 2018
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