It’s a universal desire for businesses to see their websites rank higher on Google, as over 93% of all internet traffic begins with a search engine query. Ranking on Google isn’t just a goal; it’s a crucial digital marketing strategy to engage users and drive conversions. However, not every website can achieve top rankings, primarily because Google’s algorithms prioritize content that delivers the most value to users. Moreover, before you can even contemplate ranking, you need to ensure that Google is aware of your site’s existence, which is why getting indexed by Google is paramount.Understanding Google indexing is vital for your SEO efforts. Google’s search index is essentially its comprehensive catalog of websites, from which it draws to provide search results. Contrary to popular belief, Google is not vast enough to include every site on the internet; only indexed sites are visible in search results.New sites can always be added to the index, and this process is known as Google indexing – the act of adding a website to Google’s index. Indexing occurs when Google’s web crawlers, also known as spiders, crawl websites on the internet.Indexing is a critical process for businesses aiming to reach users through Google. Without indexing, your website won’t rank high and won’t appear in search results at all. To effectively reach your audience, for instance, if you sell lawnmowers in Topeka, you want to appear in searches for “Topeka lawnmowers.” But without prior indexing, your site won’t show up in any searches, leading to minimal traffic. Google indexing is the first step in boosting site traffic, revenue, and conversions for your business.The process of appearing in Google search results involves three stages – crawling, indexing, and ranking.Part 1: CrawlingGoogle’s initial interaction with your website is through crawling. A Google crawler might find your site through various means – following a link from another site or through a direct sitemap submission. Once a Google crawler locates your site, it crawls it, essentially scanning the entire website to understand its content.This involves reading the text, evaluating the layout, and attempting to interpret images and videos.Part 2: IndexingAfter crawling, the next step is indexing. This is critical – if your site doesn’t meet the necessary criteria, Google won’t index it, and the site won’t have a chance at ranking. Several factors could lead to Google not indexing a site.Here are some of the factors affecting how Google indexes:
Noindex: Using a “noindex” tag in a site’s HTML signals to Google not to index that site.
Content: Google won’t index a page with content that lacks value to users.
Duplicate content: Pages entirely composed of duplicate content are less likely to be indexed.
Sitemaps: Creating and submitting a sitemap notifies Google of your website, increasing the likelihood of crawling it.
Canonicalization: When multiple versions of a page exist and one is marked as non-canonical, Google won’t index that version.
Should no red flags arise, the crawler will use the information found on your site to determine its content and then add it to the search index.Part 3: RankingThe final step in the process is ranking. This is where your site gets a chance to appear in relevant search results and generate traffic. Whenever someone searches Google for something, it scans its search index to find the most relevant pages for that query.If your site is included, Google will rank it in the results. Of course, optimizing for higher rankings and reaching the first page is a separate process. But once your site is indexed, you can start this optimization process.Google will eventually crawl and index your site on its own if you wait long enough.However, the sooner you get your site indexed, the sooner you can start increasing your revenue. For this reason, it’s better to take an active approach. You can do this by submitting your sitemap directly to Google.A sitemap is a list of all the URLs on your website, and submitting it to Google helps Google quickly locate and index all of those pages. After creating your sitemap, you can submit it through Google Search Console or by “pinging” Google with an HTTP GET request. You can ping Google using the following template:[sitemap URL]Replace “[sitemap URL]” with the actual URL of your sitemap, and then enter the resulting link into your address bar.Google will then confirm that they have received your request. In addition to submitting your sitemap, there are several ways you can optimize your site to improve its chances of being indexed, including:
Ensuring quality and originality: Make sure all your pages provide value to users. Employ good web design strategies and avoid any duplicate content.
Checking your meta tags: Examine your site for any incorrect noindex or canonical tags – having these on a page by mistake means the page won’t be indexed. In cases of duplicate content, you will want meta tags.
Cleaning up your navigation: Ensure that you don’t have any “orphaned” pages – that is, pages not linked to from anywhere else on the site. All indexed pages on your site should be interconnected.
With your site optimized for indexing and your sitemap submitted, your site will soon be in the Google search index and on the path to ranking in search results!Looking to get your site indexed and boost your rankings? WebFX can help!With over 1,100 testimonials, we’ve proven ourselves as the SEO agency businesses trust to deliver results, and we’d be delighted to demonstrate our capabilities to you.Our SEO services will assist you in optimizing your content for all indexing and ranking factors mentioned above. You’ll also have a dedicated account representative to keep you informed about our actions. To begin with us, call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!
