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.
Quick SEO Quiz

Test your SEO knowledge in 3 questions

Less than 30 seconds. Find out how much you really know about Google search.

🕒 ~30s 🎯 3 questions 📚 SEO Google
★★ Can an SSL certificate really penalize your search rankings?
If an SSL certificate works correctly in a browser, it will work correctly for Google indexing. An SSL certificate problem would not cause a drop in visibility in search results....
John Mueller May 08, 2022
★★ Should you replace sitemap extensions with structured data?
Certain tags and attributes from sitemap extensions (video, image, etc.) have equivalents in schema.org structured data. It is preferable to provide this information through structured data because an...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Does submitting your URLs via API really guarantee indexation without Google crawling them?
Even if URLs are submitted directly via APIs like the Indexing API or IndexNow, search engines must still crawl the pages to confirm that the content matches. This prevents mismatches between what is ...
John Mueller May 05, 2022
★★★ Why does Google ignore the 'lastmod' tag in your sitemaps?
Google does not use the 'lastmod' (last modified) tag in sitemaps because it is highly unreliable. Websites often update this date for minor changes such as HTML tags or copyright notices, without any...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Should you still bother filling in the lastmod tag in your XML sitemaps?
Unlike Google, Bing uses the 'lastmod' tag from sitemap files. Google doesn't use it due to its poor reliability, as sites often update it without any significant content changes....
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Should You Stop Using Video and Image Tags in Your XML Sitemaps?
Google is considering deprecating certain video and image sitemap extension tags that have equivalents in structured data. This would avoid conflicts between sitemap data and structured data, the latt...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Are session identifiers in URL parameters still sabotaging your site's crawlability?
Session identifiers in URL parameters create a pseudo-infinite number of URLs for search engines, making crawling impossible. This widespread problem in the 2000s was revealed to webmasters when they ...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★★ Should you really keep the 'priority' tag in your sitemaps?
Google does not use the 'priority' tag in sitemap files. This information is explicitly mentioned in Google's official documentation. Website owners tend to mark all their pages as priority, making th...
John Mueller May 05, 2022
★★ Why does creating a sitemap expose more technical problems than it solves?
The sitemap creation process forces website owners to crawl their own site and understand the technical details of crawling: URL parameters, session identifiers, link structure. This exercise often re...
John Mueller May 05, 2022
★★★ Does submitting a sitemap really guarantee that Google will crawl your URLs?
Submitting a sitemap does not guarantee that Google will crawl the listed URLs. The sitemap simply indicates to Google that these URLs exist, without any instruction to crawl them. The process of what...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Does a crawlable site really guarantee better user navigation?
A site that's easily crawlable by search engines also allows users to navigate and discover deep content. If the site is crawlable, users can click and explore, which is the ultimate objective....
John Mueller May 05, 2022
★★★ Should you really remove the 'changefreq' tag from your sitemaps?
Google does not use the 'changefreq' (change frequency) tag in XML sitemap files. It is impossible for site owners to accurately predict how often a page will actually change, making this information ...
Gary Illyes May 05, 2022
★★ Should you really use Google's Indexing API for all your content?
The Indexing API is designed for very specific types of content. Using it for other content types doesn't really make sense, although it's not illegal or problematic....
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★★ Is your content trapped behind buttons that Googlebot refuses to click?
Googlebot doesn't click on buttons during crawling. If an age verification interstitial blocks content loading and requires a click, this can block indexation and crawling....
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★★ Does hreflang really boost your ranking in a targeted country?
Having a local version of a page via hreflang does not make that page rank better. Google simply swaps the URL displayed in search results for the local version if it is indexed, but at the same ranki...
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★ Can poor machine translations really sabotage your international SEO strategy?
Using low-quality automatic translations that are indexed can lead Google's algorithms to treat these pages as poor quality and not classify them as good pages....
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★ Can Googlebot actually access your .htaccess file?
Googlebot generally cannot access the .htaccess file because servers are configured to block external access. However, Google sees the effects of this file since it controls how the server responds to...
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★★ Does Google really give its own platforms an unfair advantage in search results?
Content hosted on Blogger, Google Sites, or other Google platforms receives no special treatment in search results. It must be discovered, crawled, and indexed like any other content on the web....
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★★ Does Google penalize you for translating content between languages?
Translating a page from one language to another is not penalized. Google considers this as creating new content with new words and phrases, which can be crawled and indexed normally....
John Mueller Apr 29, 2022
★★ Is Google finally addressing the technical complexity that plagues e-commerce sites?
Google has created a series called 'Ecommerce Essentials' dedicated to exploring and resolving common issues encountered by e-commerce sites in Google Search....
Alan Kent Apr 13, 2022
🔔

Get real-time analysis of the latest Google SEO declarations

Be the first to know every time a new official Google statement drops — with full expert analysis.

No spam. Unsubscribe in one click.