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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★★★ Is Google's robots.txt version history the game-changer your SEO audits have been waiting for?
The Search Console robots.txt tester now provides precise timestamping showing what your robots.txt file looked like at a specific date and time, allowing you to track modifications over time....
Jamie Indigo Mar 02, 2023
★★★ Can a single failed AJAX request destroy the indexability of your entire page?
If a site uses multiple JSON/AJAX endpoints to construct a page and a single request fails without appropriate error handling, this can cause the entire page render to fail for Googlebot, generating a...
Jamie Indigo Mar 02, 2023
★★★ Is robots.txt silently blocking your critical resources without you knowing?
Google Search Console's URL inspection tool allows you to identify scripts blocked by robots.txt in the 'page resources' section, which can prevent proper page rendering by Google....
Jamie Indigo Mar 02, 2023
★★★ Do All Google Bots Actually Render Your Website's JavaScript?
Not all Google crawlers use the same rendering system, and some bots don't even render websites at all, according to John Mueller. He was responding to a user's question asking whether all crawlers us...
John Mueller Feb 28, 2023
★★ Should You Use Noindex and Nofollow on Redirecting URLs?
A few days ago, William Sears asked Gary Illyes the following question: "Will the noindex and nofollow directives on a redirecting URL be respected or ignored?" He then specified that these directives...
Gary Illyes Feb 28, 2023
★★★ Are you hiding redirects from Googlebot and killing your site migration?
Google has received escalations from sites that configured redirects triggering only for users but not for Googlebot, causing migration issues....
Gary Illyes Feb 23, 2023
★★ Could removing obsolete URLs from your sitemaps actually boost your SEO?
It is recommended to gradually remove obsolete URLs from XML sitemaps instead of keeping them indefinitely. This facilitates management and reduces the size of sitemap files over time....
Google Feb 09, 2023
★★ Do your JSON files really need to be indexed?
For resource files (like JSON files used by JavaScript), there's no need to make them directly accessible via URL if Google can read them through JavaScript. There's no need for specific configuration...
Google Feb 09, 2023
★★★ Why should you keep old URLs in the sitemap after a 301 redirect?
When changing URLs with 301 redirects, it is advisable to keep the old URLs in the XML sitemap until they disappear from Google's index. Once they are indexed under their new URL, they can be removed ...
Google Feb 09, 2023
★★ Is it true that the order of tags in an XML sitemap doesn't matter to Google?
In an XML sitemap, the order of tags (URL, last updated date, frequency, priority) is not important. Only the URL is mandatory. If Search Console processes the sitemap correctly, there are no issues e...
Google Feb 09, 2023
★★★ Why does spoofing Googlebot's user agent in your browser actually accomplish nothing?
Changing the user agent to Googlebot in your browser may not work as expected because Googlebot also respects robots.txt (which browsers ignore) and some websites verify whether the request actually c...
Google Feb 07, 2023
★★★ Does Googlebot really ignore scrolling and user interactions?
Googlebot does not interact with pages, which includes not only clicking but also scrolling. JavaScript code that depends on scroll events will therefore not be executed by Googlebot during exploratio...
Google Feb 07, 2023
★★★ Should you really ban lazy loading and infinite scroll to get indexed by Google?
For Googlebot to index content, it must be loaded without requiring user interaction such as scrolling. Developers must find an alternative to load this content in a way that is accessible to Googlebo...
Google Feb 07, 2023
★★★ Could Your CDN and Firewall Be Blocking Googlebot Without You Knowing?
Gary Illyes explained on LinkedIn that the two obstacles most frequently encountered by Googlebot when crawling a site were CDNs and Firewalls that are more or less properly configured. And he advises...
Gary Illyes Feb 06, 2023
★★★ Should You Really Always Use Absolute URLs in Your Canonical Tags?
Gary Illyes explained on LinkedIn that "canonical" tags on a website should contain absolute addresses (https://www..com/20230203-51450-quand-les-quality-raters-de-google-manifestent-pour-etre-mieux-p...
Gary Illyes Feb 06, 2023
★★ Can JavaScript Really Be Indexed Faster Than HTML?
Contrary to expectations, some JavaScript pages can be indexed faster than their HTML equivalents, because Google runs indexing processes in parallel with different priorities depending on the type of...
Martin Splitt Feb 01, 2023
★★★ Can loading spinners really prevent Google from indexing your JavaScript pages?
Loading spinners that hide content during JavaScript rendering can prevent Googlebot from accessing the full content of the page, even if everything works correctly in Chrome or in Fetch as Google....
Martin Splitt Feb 01, 2023
★★★ Is your JavaScript slowing down how fast Google discovers your pages?
In comparative experiments, the discovery and crawling of internal links are significantly faster on HTML-based sites than on sites where links are injected dynamically via JavaScript....
Martin Splitt Feb 01, 2023
★★★ Was Google really prioritizing HTML over JavaScript for crawling and indexing?
In 2015-2016, Google had difficulty indexing certain JavaScript frameworks like AngularJS. Websites built entirely in HTML were crawled and indexed faster than JavaScript-based sites, even though Goog...
Martin Splitt Feb 01, 2023
★★★ Is your JavaScript really being rendered by Google? Here's how to verify it with the honeypot method.
To verify whether Google is correctly rendering your JavaScript, create links accessible only via JavaScript that point to unique URLs, then analyze your server logs to confirm that Googlebot accesses...
Martin Splitt Feb 01, 2023
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