SEO is a very big, deep sea. To fully understand SEO, we should know some basic SEO terms.
Crawling and indexing are two such terms.
If you have been in the web world for a while, you’ve at least heard the words:
- Google Crawling and Indexing.
These are the two terms upon which the entire web world depends.
Let’s define, understand, and get some in-depth information about crawling and indexing.
Crawling:
- When Google visits your website for tracking purposes. This process is done by Google’s Spider crawler.
Indexing:
- After crawling has been done, the results get put onto Google’s index (i.e. web search).
What is Google Crawling?
Crawling basically means following a path.
In the SEO world, crawling means following your links and “crawling” around your website. When bots come to your website (any page), they follow other linked pages also on your website.
This is one reason why we create site maps, as they contain all of the links in our blog and Google’s bots can use them to look deeply into a website.
- The way we stop crawling certain parts of our site is by using the Robots.txt file.
What is Google Indexing?
In layman’s terms, indexing is the process of adding webpages into Google search.
Depending upon which meta tag you used (index or NO-index), Google will crawl and index your pages. A no-index tag means that that page will not be added into the web search’s index.
- By default, every WordPress post and page is indexed.
A good idea for ranking higher in search engines is to let only vital parts of your blog/website be indexed.
Do not index unnecessary archives like tags, categories, and all other useless pages.
Factors That Affect Crawling:
There are millions of websites on this earth. Is everyone satisfied with the crawling and indexing rate?? No!! Most people are left constantly wondering why their articles aren’t getting indexed.
Let’s take a look at some major factors which play some important roles at the backend of crawling and indexing.
Domain Name
Since the Google Panda update, domain name importance has risen significantly. Domains that include the main keyword are given importance.
Also, the crawling rate is higher for those domains that have a good Page Rank.
Read:
- How To Select A Great Domain Name
- How To Find The Best Domain Name For Your Website
Backlinks
The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy and reputable you are in the eyes of search engines.
If you have good rankings but aren’t earning any backlinks for your site, search engines may assume that you have low quality content.
Read:
- Top 5 Online Backlink Checker Tools
- 101 Ways To Get Quality Backlinks To Your Blog
Internal Linking
There have been so many discussions regarding internal linking (also known as deep linking). People even suggest to use the same anchor text within the same article as it helps in the deep crawling of a site.
What’s important to remember is that internal linking is a good practice, not just for SEO, but also for maintaining active users on your website.
Read:
- Interlink Blog Posts Like A Pro Using The ‘SEO Smart Link’ Plugin
- Interlink Your Old Posts To Keep Your Readers For Longer
- Quickly Interlink Your Blog Posts With The ‘Insight’ WordPress plugin
XML Sitemap
The moment you setup a site in WordPress, you are advised to use an XML sitemap so that your sitemap can be auto-generated. This way, Google will be informed that your site has been updated and will want to crawl it.
Read:
- How To Submit Sitemap To Google
Duplicate Content
This could be really bad for you.
Recently I found a site which had so many repeated paragraphs spread throughout different posts. This site was banned by Google because of this practice.
Try not to have any duplicate content on your site.
Fix all of your 301 and 404 re-directs for even better crawling and SEO.
Read:
- How To Fix “Replytocom” Issue To Avoid Duplicate Content
- Use Robots.txt To Fight Against Duplicate Content
URL Canonicalization
Create SEO friendly URLs for each page on your site.
This is huge for proper SEO.
Read:
- What Is URL Canonicalization and How Do You Use Canonical Tags Properly?
Meta Tags
Have unique and non-competitive meta tags for your website. This will ensure that you have top ranking in search engines.
Read:
- How To Use Meta Tag Analyzer While Doing SEO
Pinging
Make sure that you have added all of the main ping sites to your WordPress site. WordPress has an auto-pinging feature which will inform search engines about your website’s updates.
Read:
- WordPress Ping List
When you optimize your website based on these factors, Google will have no choice but to crawl and index your page faster and more accurately.
What do you do for faster indexing of your website? Join the discussion in the comments below!
Was this guide helpful? Share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus!
SEO is a very big, deep sea. To fully understand SEO, we should know some basic SEO terms.
Crawling and indexing are two such terms.
If you have been in the web world for a while, you’ve at least heard the words:
These are the two terms upon which the entire web world depends.
Let’s define, understand, and get some in-depth information about crawling and indexing.
Crawling:
Indexing:
What is Google Crawling?
Crawling basically means following a path.
In the SEO world, crawling means following your links and “crawling” around your website. When bots come to your website (any page), they follow other linked pages also on your website.
This is one reason why we create site maps, as they contain all of the links in our blog and Google’s bots can use them to look deeply into a website.
What is Google Indexing?
In layman’s terms, indexing is the process of adding webpages into Google search.
Depending upon which meta tag you used (index or NO-index), Google will crawl and index your pages. A no-index tag means that that page will not be added into the web search’s index.
A good idea for ranking higher in search engines is to let only vital parts of your blog/website be indexed.
Do not index unnecessary archives like tags, categories, and all other useless pages.
Factors That Affect Crawling:
There are millions of websites on this earth. Is everyone satisfied with the crawling and indexing rate?? No!! Most people are left constantly wondering why their articles aren’t getting indexed.
Let’s take a look at some major factors which play some important roles at the backend of crawling and indexing.
Domain Name
Since the Google Panda update, domain name importance has risen significantly. Domains that include the main keyword are given importance.
Also, the crawling rate is higher for those domains that have a good Page Rank.
Read:
Backlinks
The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy and reputable you are in the eyes of search engines.
If you have good rankings but aren’t earning any backlinks for your site, search engines may assume that you have low quality content.
Read:
Internal Linking
There have been so many discussions regarding internal linking (also known as deep linking). People even suggest to use the same anchor text within the same article as it helps in the deep crawling of a site.
What’s important to remember is that internal linking is a good practice, not just for SEO, but also for maintaining active users on your website.
Read:
XML Sitemap
The moment you setup a site in WordPress, you are advised to use an XML sitemap so that your sitemap can be auto-generated. This way, Google will be informed that your site has been updated and will want to crawl it.
Read:
Duplicate Content
This could be really bad for you.
Recently I found a site which had so many repeated paragraphs spread throughout different posts. This site was banned by Google because of this practice.
Try not to have any duplicate content on your site.
Fix all of your 301 and 404 re-directs for even better crawling and SEO.
Read:
URL Canonicalization
Create SEO friendly URLs for each page on your site.
This is huge for proper SEO.
Read:
Meta Tags
Have unique and non-competitive meta tags for your website. This will ensure that you have top ranking in search engines.
Read:
Pinging
Make sure that you have added all of the main ping sites to your WordPress site. WordPress has an auto-pinging feature which will inform search engines about your website’s updates.
Read:
When you optimize your website based on these factors, Google will have no choice but to crawl and index your page faster and more accurately.
What do you do for faster indexing of your website? Join the discussion in the comments below!
Was this guide helpful? Share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus!
Subscribe on Youtube
Like this:
Support