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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★★ Does the switch to HTTP/2 by Googlebot impact your Core Web Vitals?
The switch to HTTP/2 crawling by Googlebot has no impact on the user-visible speed metrics (Core Web Vitals). These performance reports remain unchanged as they measure the real user experiences, not ...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Does using noindex during migration mean you're losing all your SEO value in Google's eyes?
If you use noindex on old URLs during a migration instead of redirecting, all the value collected by those old URLs will be lost....
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Should you really be concerned about Google’s HTTP/2 crawling?
Google has begun rolling out HTTP/2 crawling. The rollout is being done gradually across samples of compatible sites, with notifications sent via Search Console. The goal is to ensure everything works...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Does the technical duplicate content issue really harm your site's SEO?
Google handles technical duplicate content (multiple URLs generating the same content) by automatically selecting a canonical version to index. Only this canonical version counts for indexing and qual...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Why does Google ignore your title and meta description tags?
Google does not always show exactly the title and description defined in the meta tags. Google's systems attempt to automatically determine which title and description are most suitable for each searc...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Does Infinite Scroll Really Hinder Your Content's Indexing on Google?
For Infinite Scroll, having paginated links is very important for crawling and indexing. The History API alone is not enough as Googlebot does not trigger user actions like scrolling. Without paginate...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Should you really worry about Google's transition to HTTP/2 crawling?
Google has started to deploy HTTP/2 crawling. The rollout is gradual with a sample of sites, and notifications are sent via Search Console. The goal is to proceed slowly to ensure that everything func...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★ How does the position of a link in the structure really affect crawl frequency?
Google crawls pages it considers important for a site more frequently. Links from the homepage help Google understand that a page is important and deserves to be crawled more often. Pages like legal n...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★ Why does Google rewrite your titles and meta descriptions even with your optimizations?
Google does not always display 100% of the title and description of all pages in the search results. The systems attempt to automatically determine which titles and descriptions are optimal, and can t...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Does the URL removal tool really prevent Google from crawling your pages?
Using the URL removal tool in Search Console simply hides pages from search results for about 6 months, but does not stop crawling or indexing. Pages remain in Google's systems and continue to be proc...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Should you really include HTML pages in an image sitemap instead of just JPG files?
Image sitemaps must reference the URLs of HTML pages that contain the images, with the image extension to indicate which images are present. Submitting only image files in a sitemap is ineffective, as...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Does the URL removal tool really take your pages out of Google's index?
The URL removal tool does not remove pages from Google's systems but only hides their visibility in search results. The pages remain indexed and count towards the site. To truly remove content, you mu...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ Why doesn’t Google's URL removal tool actually take your pages out of its index?
To truly remove content from Google's index, you need to return a 404, 410 code, or use the noindex tag. The URL removal tool merely temporarily hides pages from the results without taking them out of...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★ Does HTTP/2 really boost crawl budget or does it just overload your servers?
With HTTP/2, Google can crawl more pages because requests are managed differently. However, some servers may be under the same strain as before. Google adjusts the crawl volume based on the reactions ...
John Mueller Jan 15, 2021
★★★ How long does it really take Google to reindex a site after a migration?
After significant changes like a domain move, URL modifications, or switching to HTTPS, you need to give Google a few weeks to update its index. The index coverage report helps you track this progress...
Aurora Morales Jan 13, 2021
★★ Is it really necessary to regularly check Search Console to excel at SEO?
It's important to regularly check the tools and reports available in Search Console, such as the index coverage and performance reports, to understand how your site performs in search....
Aurora Morales Jan 13, 2021
★★★ Why does Google index new sites slowly and how can you speed up the process?
For new websites, Google indexes content gradually and conservatively at first. Google first checks that the site is of good quality and well integrated on the web before speeding up crawling and inde...
John Mueller Jan 08, 2021
★★★ Do links really follow the canonical URLs on both sides?
Google follows links by using the canonical URLs from both the source page and the destination page. When migrating a website, transferring link data in Search Console takes time because Google must f...
John Mueller Jan 08, 2021
★★★ Does Google really disregard everything on a 404 page?
Google does not examine any content on a page returning a 404 status. If the page returns a 404 status, Google ignores any canonical, noindex, or other elements present on that page. The 404 status co...
John Mueller Jan 08, 2021
★★★ Is it really necessary to limit your page indexing to rank better?
For new sites, Google recommends focusing first on fewer but truly important pages, such as categories instead of all individual products. This approach helps to gradually build site authority before ...
John Mueller Jan 08, 2021
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