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 Google really crawl a page without indexing it if the content doesn't make sense?
If a page's content is gibberish or unintelligible, Google can crawl it but probably won't index it because the system cannot extract useful words or meaning from the page....
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★ Does moving low-quality UGC content really unlock your site's crawl potential?
SEOs have observed improvements in how Google crawls certain sections of their site after moving low-quality UGC content away from the main domain. Improving quality allows you to escape 'crawl prison...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★ Is Googlebot really that dumb, or is Google hiding something about how crawling actually works?
Googlebot is simply a wget or curl instance that fetches pages with no inherent intelligence. It's the crawl scheduling system that makes the smart decisions about what to crawl and when, based on qua...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Does content quality really impact every single Google ranking system?
Content quality affects practically all Google search systems: from sitemaps to crawling, ranking, indexing, index selection, and ranking. Different systems use quality differently, but they all use i...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Why Can Your Indexed URL Count Suddenly Skyrocket in Search Console?
In the September SEO Office Hours, Gary Illyes explained why it's sometimes possible to observe a sudden spike in indexed URLs in Google Search. There are multiple reasons that can explain this, but G...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Why does Google rely on links from 'normal websites' to evaluate your site's authority?
Links from normal websites (not profile pages or suspicious sites) are very useful for estimating a site's importance for indexation. The more natural links a site receives from legitimate websites, t...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★ Does Google really filter certain topics during crawling and indexing?
At the crawling and indexing stage, Google is not particularly demanding about a page's subject matter (legal, technical, etc.). What matters is the quality of the content and how it is written, not t...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Is Google really penalizing entire sections of your site based on quality patterns?
Google can learn that certain URL patterns on a site contain lower-quality content and treat them differently. For example, a user-generated content section may be crawled less frequently if the overa...
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Does Google really prioritize high-quality pages when deciding what to crawl?
The crawl scheduler makes predictions about the quality of pages to crawl and in what order. It establishes an ordered list of URLs to crawl, with higher-quality URLs being crawled with priority....
Gary Illyes Sep 19, 2023
★★★ Should You Really Avoid Google Sites for Your SEO Strategy?
During the September 2023 SEO Office Hours, John Mueller stated that Google Sites were not the ideal solution for SEO. While sites created through this service can be indexed by Google, they can also ...
John Mueller Sep 12, 2023
★★★ Can a noindex on your homepage really cause other pages to rank first instead?
If a homepage contains a meta robots noindex tag, this will prevent that page from being indexed. Other pages on the site can then appear first in search results....
Google Sep 06, 2023
★★★ Does mobile-first indexing really force you to prioritize the mobile version above all else?
With mobile-first indexing, Google uses the mobile version of a page as the basis for indexing and discovering links. If the mobile version contains the complete content, that's sufficient....
Google Sep 06, 2023
★★ Should you really worry about 404 errors generated by JSON and JavaScript in Google Search Console?
404 error URLs appearing in Google Search Console that seem to come from JSON or JavaScript code can be ignored, or you can add an HTTP noindex header for these URLs....
Gary Illyes Sep 06, 2023
★★★ Should you stop forcing indexing when Google deindexes your pages?
If pages are deindexed after submission, it means Google's systems aren't convinced of your site's value. Don't keep forcing indexation, but instead work on your site's overall quality and its unique ...
Google Sep 06, 2023
★★★ Why is Google indexing your URLs even when robots.txt blocks them?
Google can index the URL alone (not the content) even if that URL is blocked by robots.txt. If that's problematic, allow the URL to be crawled and use a noindex rule in HTTP headers or a meta tag....
Gary Illyes Sep 06, 2023
★★ Can infinite scroll really work for SEO when each section has its own unique URL?
Infinite scroll can work correctly for Googlebot if each virtual page section is also accessible and discoverable via a unique URL. Implementation is the key....
Gary Illyes Sep 06, 2023
★★★ Why does Googlebot ignore your buttons and how can you work around this limitation?
Generally speaking, Googlebot does not click on buttons. Links must be accessible via standard HTML elements rather than requiring user interaction....
Gary Illyes Sep 06, 2023
★★ Should you really clean up every hacked page or let Google handle the sorting?
After a hack affecting thousands of pages, focus on the most visible pages and have them removed or reindexed manually, then let the rest naturally disappear from search results....
Google Sep 06, 2023
★★ Can PDFs hosted on Google Drive actually be indexed by Google search?
Google can index public PDF files hosted on Google Drive. It's simply another URL on a website, and the indexing delay can vary from a few seconds to never....
Gary Illyes Sep 06, 2023
★★ Does Google really expect you to block indexation of menus and common site sections?
It is not necessary to block the indexation of common page content such as headers, menus, sidebars or footers. Search engines handle the web as it is, including voluminous mega menus....
Google Sep 06, 2023
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