Indexing is the process by which search engines add web pages to their database. A page must be indexed before it can appear in search results.
The indexing process
- Discovery: Search engines find pages through links or sitemaps
- Crawling: Bots visit and download page content
- Processing: Content is analyzed and parsed
- Indexing: Page is added to the search index
- Ranking: Page is evaluated for relevant queries
Common indexing issues
- Noindex tag: Page explicitly requests not to be indexed
- Blocked by robots.txt: Crawlers can't access the page
- Crawl budget: Search engines only crawl a limited number of pages
- Duplicate content: Page is identified as a duplicate
- Low quality: Page doesn't meet quality thresholds
Checking indexing status
- Google Search Console > Pages report
site:yourdomain.comsearch- URL Inspection tool in Search Console
VitalSentinel Indexing Monitoring
VitalSentinel tracks your indexing status and alerts you when important pages are dropped from Google's index.
Related Terms
Google Search Console
A free tool from Google that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their site's presence in Google Search results.
robots.txt
A text file at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers which pages or files they can or cannot request from the site.
Sitemap
A file that lists all the URLs of a website that should be indexed by search engines, helping crawlers discover content.
Web Crawler
An automated program that systematically browses the web to discover and index content for search engines.