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 Googlebot Really Crawl Your Site If You Use Cookies?
This has been known for a long time, but John Mueller recently reminded us: Googlebot crawls a site using a stateless protocol, meaning it doesn't take cookies into account. It's therefore up to you t...
John Mueller Jul 17, 2017
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Automatic Redirects Based on Visitor IP Addresses?
We've said it often on our site, and John Mueller recently reiterated it on Twitter: don't redirect your visitors to one site or another automatically based on their IP address (and therefore their ge...
John Mueller Jul 17, 2017
★★ Does the Position of Internal Links Really Affect Their SEO Weight?
John Mueller reminded in a hangout that the position of an internal link on a web page doesn't matter in terms of indexation: top of page, footer, sidebar, etc. In all cases, the link will be detected...
John Mueller Jul 17, 2017
★ Should You Nofollow Links to Legal Pages and Terms & Conditions?
John Mueller indicated during a hangout that links to pages such as "About", "Terms and Conditions" or "Legal Notices" can be set to dofollow. For our part, we recommend nofollow (especially for large...
John Mueller Jul 17, 2017
★★★ Should You Really Put a Canonical Tag on EVERY Page of Your Website?
John Mueller confirmed in a hangout that it was beneficial to implement a "canonical" tag on all canonical pages of a site pointing to themselves to avoid DUST (Duplicate URL, Same Text, more explanat...
John Mueller Jul 17, 2017
★★ Should you really index a site with thousands of pages gradually, or can you submit everything at once?
John Mueller indicated in a hangout that it poses no problem for Google's robots to crawl, all at once, a new site or a new section within a site, comprising hundreds of thousands of pages. The only p...
John Mueller Jul 10, 2017
★★★ Do Google and Bing Actually Share the Same Search Index?
John Mueller reminded us on Twitter - but did it really need to be said given how obvious the information is? - that Google doesn't share an index with Bing (or any other competing search engine). Rea...
John Mueller Jul 10, 2017
★★ Will Hidden Content in Accordions and Tabs Finally Carry the Same SEO Weight as Visible Text?
Following Gary Illyes a few weeks ago, John Mueller confirmed in a hangout that hidden but potentially visible content on a page (tabs, accordions, etc.) will be treated, when the Mobile First project...
John Mueller Jul 10, 2017
★★★ Why does Google ignore your deep links if the app and web content don't match?
To properly link a web page to an app page, the content must match; otherwise, Google will not be able to establish this link and utilize the deep link....
John Mueller Jul 07, 2017
★★★ Does hidden content in mobile accordions really count as regular content for Google?
With mobile-first indexing, content hidden in tabs or dropdown menus on mobile is treated as regular content by Google, unlike hidden content on desktop which is less valued....
John Mueller Jul 07, 2017
★★ Does the canonical tag truly control facet navigation?
Using the canonical tag is a good approach for managing facet navigation and avoiding duplicate content. Check Google's resources for more advice on this topic....
John Mueller Jul 07, 2017
★★★ Should you really place a canonical tag on every page, even without duplication?
Each page should have a canonical tag pointing to itself to clarify the preferred URL for indexing, which is useful even in the absence of apparent duplicates....
John Mueller Jul 07, 2017
★★★ How many consecutive redirects can Google actually follow before giving up?
Google can manage up to five successive redirects before halting the crawl and indexing the relevant pages. While two or three redirects do not prevent indexing, they can slow down user response time....
John Mueller Jun 30, 2017
★★★ How does Google really choose which canonical URL to index?
Google uses several signals to determine which URL is canonical, including redirects, meta rel=canonical tags, internal links, XML sitemaps, and external links. It is important that this information i...
John Mueller Jun 30, 2017
★★ Why are some pages crawled daily while others are ignored for weeks?
The frequency of recrawling and reindexing of pages by Google varies according to the URLs. Some pages may be rescanned daily, while others are less frequently visited. Having a recently added hreflan...
John Mueller Jun 30, 2017
★★★ Does Googlebot really see all the JavaScript content on your site?
Googlebot is capable of rendering pages like a normal browser, which allows it to see content generated via JavaScript. However, if essential content is hidden by default or not loaded during the init...
John Mueller Jun 30, 2017
★★★ Does unindexed low-quality content really affect your site's ranking?
Google focuses on indexed content and does not consider pages that are not indexed. If you have low-quality content on a site, it's recommended to improve its quality or use a noindex tag temporarily ...
John Mueller Jun 30, 2017
★★★ Do session IDs in your URLs harm your SEO?
It's best to avoid using session identifiers in URLs because it complicates indexing and tracking by Google's tools. Use cookies to store sessions if possible....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2017
★★★ Should you worry about redirect chains longer than five hops?
Google follows redirect chains up to five redirects at a time. Use rel=canonical and ensure that the redirect structure is clear to avoid misinterpretations....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2017
★★★ Why does Google overlook robots.txt files located in subdirectories?
Google only reads the robots.txt file from the root directory of a domain or subdomain. Robots files in subdirectories are not considered....
John Mueller Jun 29, 2017
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