Factors Affecting Indexing in SEO

Last Updated : 28 Dec, 2023

Big collection or massive library of web pages used by Google to provide results to their users. It is the process of analyzing the web pages on different factors and storing them to index. Google Index is a massive database of Google used for storing web pages and properly organizing them. So that Google retrieves information and provides it to users when they search on Google.

The index is the foundation for generating search engine results pages (SERPs). It allows search engines to quickly match user queries with relevant web pages and display them in a ranked order. Regularly updating the index and refining ranking algorithms are ongoing processes that ensure search engines provide the best possible results for users.

Indexing: How Google Organizes Web Pages

Google will index your site based on several factors-

Page titles: The title of a web page is usually displayed in the browser tab and the search results. It should describe the main topic or purpose of the page concisely and accurately.
Headings: Heading is an important part of the webpage. It should contain important and relevant keywords. Single H1 tags should be used page.
Meta descriptions: Meta descriptions are a small block of text that tells users about the content of the website. They describe your whole website to users. It is shown below your website title shown on Google. So don’t make it too short or too long and add why people should visit your site in it.
Keywords: Keywords are words or phrases that describe what the web page is about. They should match with the user’s searches on Google and your website should not look AI-like.
Images: Images can enhance the visual appeal and understanding of a web page. They should have descriptive alt text (alternative text) that explains what they show in case they cannot be displayed or accessed by screen readers.
Site structure: It refers to the way your site is organized and how different pages are linked together. How easy is the navigation you are providing to users? Users should not struggle to find the content of there need.
Mobile-friendliness: Website should be mobile friendly because google knows they have to serve site in front of users of different platforms. A mobile-friendly web page should load fast, use responsive design, avoid pop-ups, and provide a user-friendly interface.
Loading speed: Loading speed is the how fast your webpage loads its content such as text, images, scripts etc. Factors that affect loading speed include server response time, image sizes consider using webp for better loading, cache, code efficiency etc.

FAQs related to Indexing in SEO

Why is SEO indexing important?

Indexing means storing data or information of your web page into database. If indexing does not happen it means search engine did not store the information of your webpage into database. Due to this search engine can’t retrieve your webpage against user query. Due to this search engine can’t display your webpage on Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

Example of Indexing in SEO?

For example your website title is “What is Indexing in SEO“. Search Engine basically index this title in database in such manner, when user search What is Indexing in SEO search engine easily retrieve this title from database and display your website in Result page.

What are the steps of indexing?

Steps involved in indexing a website are Crawling, Discovery, Processing, Parsing, Indexing, Storing and Organizing, Ranking, Retrieval, Display Search Result, User interaction and Continuous updating.

What happens first crawling or indexing?

Crawling happens first after that Indexing happens. Search engine first perform crawling by sending the web bots also known as web spiders that navigate and scan the webpage after that search engine index all the relevant information into database.

What is SEO indexing vs crawling?

Crawling is a process to discover and update new pages on google index. Well known crawler of Google is known as Google Bot. It is responsible for fetching web, moving from one page to another through links and adding pages to Google’s list of known pages while Indexing is the process that stores information they find in an index, a huge database of all the content they have discovered, and seem good enough to serve up to searchers.

What is crawled but not indexed?

Crawled but not indexed means a web page is being discovered by search engine using web bots or spiders but due to certain reason these search engine choose not to include these pages into its index. There can be many reasons of this like Duplicate Content, Less or thin Content, NoIndex tags, Page blocked by Robot.txt, NoFollow links etc.

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