Trial version. This site is still being built, so the list and the name may change. About

Topic

Indexing

20 videos.

A page can only turn up in Google results once Google has stored it in its index. Indexing is that storing step, and it comes after crawling, when a search engine has fetched the page. Plenty of site owners meet it first as a puzzling line in Search Console: "not indexed".

Beginners could start with How to read the Indexing Report, where Google's Martin Splitt and John Mueller go through that report. For the basics from a software maker, How Search Engine Indexing Works? comes from Rank Math, which sells SEO tools.

Larger sites may prefer What is Index Bloat? from Moz, another tool company. Talks from 2019 to 2021 describe how things worked then, so compare them with Google's current documentation.

Practise with: Tools for crawling and site audits

First steps

  1. Official source

    1 How to read the Indexing Report

    Google Search Central

    Should you worry when Search Console lists pages as not indexed? Martin Splitt and John Mueller explain how to read the Page Indexing report and whether a 404 always means a broken site.

  2. Sells in this field

    2 How Search Engine Indexing Works?

    Rank Math SEO

    Search engine indexing is broken into crawling, indexing and ranking, followed by ways to control what gets indexed so that content is found.

  3. Sells in this field

    4 Wix | Live Webinar: How to Get Indexed in 2024

    Wix

    Getting pages crawled and indexed faster is the aim of this Wix webinar, where Fabrice Canel from Bing presents IndexNow and Crystal Carter answers common indexing questions.

    Older: check current guidance
  4. Independent practitioner

    5 How do you deal with Crawl Budget? | BrightonSEO 2021

    Omi Sido

    Crawl budget is how many pages crawlers can get through in a set time, according to this BrightonSEO 2021 interview with Joanna Beech, which also covers how to deal with it.

    Older: check current guidance

Once the basics are clear

  1. Official source

    9 PDFs in Search: Indexing, AI & Pitfalls

    Google Search Central

    PDF files in search get their own treatment at Google, and Martin Splitt and John Mueller explain how they are indexed, when HTML is the better choice, and traps like rasterised text.

  2. Official source

    10 Curing crawling chaos

    Google Search Central

    Crystal Carter talks with Martin Splitt about a site that no crawling tool could crawl fully, the steps and tools used to fix it, and how monitoring can head it off.

    Older: check current guidance
  3. Official source

    11 Debugging JavaScript SEO issues

    Chrome for Developers

    Which steps help diagnose common JavaScript SEO problems? Martin Splitt of Google goes through them in a short web.dev LIVE session.

    Older: check current guidance

Going further

  1. Sells in this field

    16 How Much Content is NOT Indexed in Google?

    Onely ‎

    Pages missing from Google's index are the problem here, with the speaker asking how much content goes unindexed, how SEOs should think about JavaScript websites, and presenting a new toolset.

    Older: check current guidance
  2. Sells in this field

    17 Webinar: "Rendering SEO" with Martin Splitt (Google)

    Onely ‎

    Martin Splitt of Google joins Bartosz Goralewicz and Tomek Rudzki to talk rendering SEO, the future of technical optimisation and why SEO should look beyond JavaScript.

    Older: check current guidance