SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing


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SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing

SEO Nerd Technical SEO

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seo cape town guide to indexing

SEO Cape Town Guide: What Is Google Indexing and How Does It Work?

 

According to our SEO Cape Town Guide, Indexing is the process that search engine databases use to include web pages that its bots crawl and its an important aspect of SEO. Indexing is a vital step before your website can be found by Google. On average, 16% of the pages on popular websites aren’t being indexed. In this SEO Cape Town Guide, I will explain why some of your website’s pages are not being indexed by Google. I will also provide you with the necessary solutions to fix this issue.

 

SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing Video Guide:

 

The lack of proper SEO is a critical issue that affects the entire organisation in this regard. If your pages are not indexed, the time and money that you spend on designers, managers, and writers developing them will be wasted.

 

Google’s Index

 

Without indexing content, organic traffic could not arrive for that content. Understanding how the search engine indexing mechanism works is very important to ensure that you can get the most out of your online investment, so pay attention to the SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing and read until the end.

 

seo cape town crawling before indexing

 

The concept of the Google index is fairly simple: It’s a database of web pages that the search engine can use to determine which ones should be shown in its results. Getting these pages indexed is a complex process that involves collecting information about them through a bot or crawler program and then the main system analyses according to various ranking signals that varying weights to determine if it should be indexed and then ranked. In our SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing we unpack this concept below.

 

The Crucial Steps: Google’s Indexing Pipeline

 

1. Discovery:

 

To get started, first Google must find a URL. Once it has found a page, it will extract links from it. These pages can be found in various ways, such as in sitemaps or by following other links on other web pages.

 

2. Crawling:

 

With sophisticated algorithms, relying of hundreds of signals, Google can determine which pages should be prioritised. When a page reaches the priority threshold, Googlebot will crawl it.

 

3. Indexing:

 

Once Google has extracted a page’s content, it checks for originality and quality. It then renders the page and displays its various elements, and if everything is fine, it will be indexed. This process is carried out to evaluate the page’s layout and other elements.

 

This is a simple breakdown of the various steps. However, these are the steps that are most crucial according to our SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing.

 

After your page has been successfully indexed, it will may still not necessarily be shown. Google has two indexes. A primary and secondary index. These are not official terms of these indexes but from our testing they most certainly seem to exist, whatever the names. Most indexed pages make it into the secondary index, these can be seen as indexed in the Google Search Console.

 

Whether the content is shown in the primary index or on the search results page, however, will determined by further ranking signals that determine whether the content is of high quality and uniqueness in relation to the rest of the site. If you do simple search operator command “site:domain.xyz” as an example and see the content come up in the indexed pages, then you know the content is in the primary index.

 

seo cape town good page indexing ratio

(See healthy indexing ratio above)

 

An exception to indexing content mechanism is when you use your “robots.txt” file where you intentionally prevent Google from visiting your page. The search engine will not decide to index it according to the command, but it can still index it using a link found on another page. Website owners usually use this for content that’s more operational and or that they prefer Google does not index. Robots.txt. file is a way to communicate to Google’s crawler.

 

seo cape town not healthy indexing ratio

(See unhealthy indexing ratio above)

 

Google suggests, however, to make sure that Googlebot can access all the content on your site so that it can find what you’re looking for. Otherwise, it may not discover important content and thus it won’t show in the most relevant search results.

 

SEO Cape Town Guide To Diagnosing your Website’s Indexing Status:

 

Your first step in your search engine optimisation journey is to check the statistics of your website. One of the most important factors that you should consider is how many pages are not indexed. You can do this by using the Google Search Console. This tool has the most accurate and up-to-date data straight from Google’s database. After you log in to the GSC, select a property and then click on “Pages” tab in the sidebar on the left hand side.. This report will detail pages on your site which are Indexed and which are not or discovered but not indexed for various reasons.

 

How Long Does It Take for Google to Index A New Website?

 

According to this SEO Cape Town Guide, many sites have a significant delay in the process of getting indexed by Google. We’re able to track the average time it takes for the search engine to index new pages by visiting several popular websites and then seeing which pages exist in the actual search results using search operators and then comparing the publishing date.

 

In some instances, it can take up to 6 months for a website to be crawled by Google, and it depends on the various factors to do with site architecture, internal linking and PageRank from backlinks. For larger sites the crawl budget will be a factor.

 

When it comes to publishing a new blog post or website, there are many factors that can affect how quickly it will be indexed.
For instance, the popularity of the site, which will usually affect backlink volumes that point to deeper pages of the site, its overall structure, and the content are all taken into account to determine how quickly Google will find, crawl and index content and thus allow it to be potentially shown in the index.

 

What Is “Partial Indexing”?

 

There are some instances where a page is indexed by Google but some of the content of these pages doesn’t get indexed. It is widely agreed that these unindexed fragments don’t contribute to the page’s ranking and we accept this in the SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing. They can’t be found when you search for them specifically, and they don’t seem to contribute to the page’s overall ranking. For instance, these are often the main content of a page, such as the main product description on a page of an eCommerce site.

 

Why Doesn’t Google Just Index Every Page It Knows About?

 

The web is growing at a rapid pace. According to WorldWideWebSize, there are over 5.32 billion web pages as of April 2023. A lot of the web is full of spam and duplicate content which isn’t useful or valuable to Google’s users. There is also a lot of harmful content on the web such as malware and phishing content in addition.

 

Google has taken appropriate measures to calibrate its ranking systems to avoid crawling and indexing this type of content

Why Is Indexing So Challenging?

 

1. Google Index selection:

 

Due to the size of the web, Google has to choose the pages it wants to index. It also has to avoid crawling low-quality content. To achieve this, Google’s engineers developed mechanisms that prevent it from crawling certain pages. This means that if Google’s system’s determine the content that is not of high quality, it will not crawl or index those pages.

 

2. Websites are getting heavier in resources:

 

The number of websites getting heavier each year is becoming more significant. Due to the increasing number of media formats and JavaScript used in web design, it is now more difficult for Google to index these sites. This means that they need to make sure that they can access all DOM elements that goes into making a page work. In the future, we should expect Google to be more efficient when it comes to searching for content.

 

3. Google assigning priority to URLs:

 

In order to maintain its fresh index, Google has started assigning a priority to every URL before it’s crawled. However, it also states that less important ones may not get crawled. According to Google’s patent, the priority given to a given URL can be determined by its popularity and importance in relation to the index.

 

How do you improve the chances that your web pages will be crawled by Googlebot, and assigned high priority according to our SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing?

 

• Making the most of internal linking to ensure that new pages have high PageRank.
• Having an XML sitemap is also not enough if you want to get your site indexed quickly.
• Avoid having tons of low-quality content as this can negatively affect other pages on your site.

 

Traffic is a vital element of every website’s operation. It’s simple: your pages will get indexed by the search engine, which means that people will be able to find you. Unfortunately, many websites don’t get the benefit of this process. If you work with a large website, you’ll likely notice that many of its pages don’t get crawled by Google, and it takes weeks before they are indexed and eventually shown in search results.

 

Many factors affect how a website is ranked by Google. Some of these include the quality of its content and the link quality but none of these factors mean anything if the content is not indexed.

 

Many SEOs believe that it is just the technical issues that prevent Google from indexing a website’s pages. However, this is not the case. In addition to the technical factors that affect how a website is crawled and indexed by Google, it’s also important that the quality of the content that you’re writing is also considered. The question is: how does Google determine the quality of content?

 

In this SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing, we suggest looking at what succeeds already in the top search results to give you an idea.

 

How To Make Sure Your Webpages Get Indexed by Google

After learning about Google’s complex index system, it’s important to understand that things can go wrong at various points in the pipeline. There are still ways that you can improve your chances of being indexed by the search engine.

 

seo cape town why are pages not being indexed

 

Although every website has its own unique set of issues when it comes to crawling and indexing, there are some steps that can help you get more effective results:

 

1. The “Soft Four Zero Four” status:

Avoid the “Soft Four Zero Four” signals by making sure that your pages do not contain anything that could incorrectly indicate that they have a “soft Four Zero Four” status. This includes using “Not found” or “Not available” in the copy, as well as having the number “Four Zero Four” in the URL.

 

2. Optimise your Robots.txt file

The robots.txt files are files that Googlebot considers to be an indication that a website should or should not be crawled. You would use Robots.txt files to help crawlers prioritise the most important pages on your site.

 

The robots.txt file is a file that can be used to instruct various web crawlers whether to access your website or parts of your website. It can also be used to prevent Google from visiting multiple pages on your site. Using the disallow directive, the robots.txt file blocks Google from visiting a specific page on your site and also blocks Google from indexing its content.

 

3. Implement a Crawling Strategy

A server log analysis can provide you with a detailed view of what Googlebot is crawling and how to optimise it.

 

4. Eliminate Duplicate and Low-Quality Content

Large websites eventually end up with many pages that are not ideal for search engines to index. We’ve seen examples of this with clients where content is almost duplicate or extremely thin and similar and then Google tends to avoid most pages following the same format. To assist in avoiding this, make sure that these pages are not included in your sitemaps. Use the “noindex” tag and the robots.txt file when appropriate. If Google index spends too much time in the worst parts of your site, it may underestimate the overall quality of your entire site.

 

5. Consistent SEO Signals & Tags

 

Search engine optimisation (SEO) tags that are used to guide web spider crawlers such as Googlebot. There are two types of SEO tags that you should optimise.

 

1) Rogue “Noindex” Tags: “NoIndex” tags are used by search engines to prevent pages from being indexed. If a certain page is not being indexed, it may mean that there may be an accidental “noindex” tag. You should check for the following two types of “noindex” tags:

 

• Meta Tags: You can check for “noindex” meta tags by looking for the warning “noindex” on the pages on your website. If a page is marked as such, the meta tag should be removed.

 

 

• X-Robots-Tag: You can check for X-Robots-Tag entries in Google’s Search Console by using the URL Inspection Tool. Make sure that the “indexing allowed” response is indicated. If the words “noindex” are detected in the X-Robots-Tag http header, then remove the X-Robots-Tag.

 

2) Canonical Tags:

 

The canonical tags are used to indicate that a page is the preferred version. If a page doesn’t have a canonical tag, Google will automatically index it as the preferred version.

 

If a page has a canonical tag, Googlebot will not index it. Instead, it will assume that the page has another version that’s better suited for users.

 

Google’s URL Inspection Tool can be used to check for canonical tags.

 

6. Ensure Proper Internal Linking and Effective Backlinking

 

A properly linked page helps search engines find your site. Non-linked pages, which are often referred to as “orphan pages”, are rarely indexed. A site’s architecture should ensure that internal linking is performed properly.

 

Your XML sitemap provides a list of all the pages on your site, which can help identify non-linked content. Follow these tips to ensure that internal linking is performed properly:

 

• One of the most important factors that search engines consider when it comes to determining which pages to index is the quality of the links that are generated from authority sites. High-quality backlinks are imperative and tell Google that a page should be indexed.

 

• Spiders crawl your website to find new content. Having high-ranking internal links can help speed up the process. Internal links are also helpful in reducing the time it takes to index new pages and it is easier for Googlebot to find these pages.

 

• When Google sees “nofollow” tags on your site’s internal links, it flags the search engine to remove the link from its index. It is suggested that “nofollow” tags are removed from your site’s internal links.

 

7. Prioritise High Quality Content Over Quantity

 

Getting high-quality content is very important for search engines and for ranking. Having the best possible content is also very important for website owners to ensure that their sites are performing well. In order to achieve this, you should remove content that continues not to be indexed but be don’t remove content that does index.

 

This strategy will allow Googlebot to focus on the more important pages of your website. It will also help you optimize your “crawl budget.” In addition, you should ensure that the content on your site is unique and has value for your users, avoid very similar content pages that don’t offer much value and tend to carry a large percentage of duplicate copy: many site owner builds out very similar pages for different geographical regions where only the headings change.

 

When it comes to choosing the best strategy for your business, many entrepreneurs ask themselves: should I prioritise quantity or quality? While there are advantages to both approaches, the quality of content should be considered the most important.

 

Having the proper amount of content is important for those business that need to keep up to date with the latest trends and keep their customers informed. Unfortunately, if the quality of content is not exceptional, it will often fall through the cracks in terms of indexing

 

Indexing vs Ranking

 

The important of indexing must be emphasised. However, you have to keep in mind that a page can be indexed but not ranked for any keywords, as mentioned earlier, the difference between the primary and secondary index, in this SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing.

 

If you have a large website, you might have some pages that get very little or next to zero clicks and impressions. To check these, go to your Google Search Console account. Think of adding more unique content here.

 

Getting traffic and ranking is the final step and most rewarding step of the SEO journey. However, remember that all of these components (crawling, indexing and ranking) are fully interconnected, and all belong in the same Google pipeline.

 

In Conclusion

 

As a final note, remember that above all, before your site can rank on search engines, it must be indexed.
Before you start building a strategy for boosting your site’s search engine ranking, it’s important to analyse the various factors that affect its success. The best place to start your site’s indexing journey would be to consider these questions:

 

• Are the indexed pages on your site increasing or are they decreasing?
• Can Google easily find your pages on your site?
• Are there any technical issues that would prevent you from getting the most out of your site’s content?
• Are your site’s pages that you want to get indexed valuable and are the pages that are being indexed intended to be indexed?
• Can Google find your sites pages easily?

 

After answering these questions and studying this SEO Cape Town Guide To Indexing, you should be well equipped to resolve indexing issues on your website so that you are able to provide a valuable and optimised experience for your users.