Gary Illyes

★★★ How does Google decide which version of a duplicate page to index?

Once the HTML is processed, Google determines whether the page is a duplicate of another page it already knows about. It then selects which version should be retained in the index as the canonical ver...

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google decide which version to index when you have duplicate content?

The canonical version is the page from a group of duplicate pages that best represents that group according to the signals collected by Google on each version. Mostly, only canonical pages appear in s...

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ How does Google really group pages with similar content together?

Google groups a page's main content with one or more pages presenting similar content if any exist. This process is called duplicate clustering....

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google weigh different SEO signals when choosing your canonical page?

Signals are information that search engines collect about web pages and websites. Some signals are simple, like HTML annotations left by site owners (rel=canonical), while others, such as a page's imp...

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Google actually choose the canonical page in a duplicate cluster?

Each cluster of duplicate pages will have a single version of content selected as canonical. This version will represent the content in search results for all other versions in the cluster....

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does Google really serve different versions of your pages based on search context?

The other versions in the cluster become alternative versions that can be served in different contexts, for example if the user searches for a very specific page within the cluster....

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does Google really decide which of your pages deserve to be indexed?

Once signals are collected and duplicates are eliminated, Google decides whether or not to index the page. This process is called index selection and depends largely on the page quality and the signal...

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What information does Google actually store in its index for canonical pages?

If a canonical page is indexed, Google stores the information collected about it and its cluster in Google's index. The index is technically a large database distributed across thousands of computers....

Apr 04, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you really restrict the Indexing API to only Google's recommended use cases?

The Indexing API should only be used for very specific use cases: live-streamed events, job postings, and streaming videos. It works for other content but this is not recommended....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Why does Google restrict the Indexing API to specific use cases instead of making it universally available?

The Indexing API is not designed to be used at large scale for all types of content. It is limited to certain use cases because it is not scalable and remains proprietary, unlike open protocols....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Can the Indexing API Remove Your Content as Fast as It Indexes It?

The Indexing API is effective for getting content into the index quickly, but Google frequently reassesses what belongs in the index. If you push low-quality content, it can be removed within minutes ...

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does improving content quality really trigger Google to crawl your site more frequently?

Scheduling is highly dynamic. As soon as signals indicate that content quality has improved across multiple URLs, Google begins increasing crawl demand. This happens quickly, but not instantaneously....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does removing your low-quality pages really boost your crawl budget and rankings?

There are numerous case studies where sites removed low-quality sections and saw their crawl improve. If it's a relatively large section of the site that consists of low-quality content, improving it ...

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Can the URL inspection tool really speed up the indexing of your improvements?

If you've improved the quality of a few pages and aren't seeing any effect on crawling, you can use the inspection tool in Search Console to submit these URLs to the index and see what happens....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ What exactly is a web crawler and why does Google insist on this definition?

A crawler is software that retrieves information and resources from websites. For a search engine to index and rank content, it must first retrieve it using a crawler....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Is Googlebot really just crawling without making any indexing decisions?

Googlebot is solely responsible for retrieving pages. It makes no decisions regarding indexation. Its only function is to fetch the content....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ How does Googlebot actually crawl your web pages?

Googlebot is composed of three distinct systems: the fetcher that retrieves pages, a controller that merges links discovered in HTML with those from sitemaps, and a scheduler that orchestrates when an...

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Does your crawl budget really depend on Search demand?

The crawl limit is not controlled solely by Search, but also by other Google services. If Search demand decreases, the crawl limit decreases as well. To increase crawl, you must convince Search that y...

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★ Does crawl budget really exist at Google?

Internally at Google, they don't think in terms of crawl budget. This concept was created in the documentation to explain to people that there are finite resources and limits to what can be crawled....

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available

★★★ Should you block certain pages from Google crawl to optimize your crawl budget?

Google should not crawl all pages of a website. Certain pages such as shopping carts or hyper-filtered product pages are not useful as entry points from search results, even if they are useful for use...

Mar 14, 2024 ⚡ Analysis available