While current Google indexing and crawling efforts are efficient, they’re open to trying the IndexNow protocol.
As you know, search engines crawl and index website pages. Search engines find, understand, and organize everything published on the internet. They pull up and offer the most relevant information to the user’s query.
With search engine optimization, the most critical piece is the visibility of your content across search engines. Your content will not appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) if they can’t find you. Advanced Digital Media Services is here to explain how crawling and indexing works and how the IndexNow protocol will change the landscape of indexing by Google.
What Is Crawling and Indexing?
The internet is a vast space filled with billions of information. Before you start your search, search engines apply crawling and indexing protocols. On Google, web crawlers, also known as Googlebot, gather all the related information. Google uses web crawlers to find web pages available for the public, and they scan these pages and follow links included in the content.
The process is much like what a user does when browsing. Web crawlers go through all these links and bring back the data on Google’s servers. Once web crawlers find a web page, Google renders all the content on the page — taking signals like website freshness and keywords. All of this information is tracked on the Google Search Index.
Google indexing means running an analysis of a web page’s content and meaning. If it follows the webmaster guidelines set by Google, your page will come up in Google search results. Google Search index is like the index you see on the back of a book — there’s an entry for every word on every web page’s content.
Does This Affect Your Search Engine Ranking?
Now that you know the answer to “what is crawling and indexing?” your next question might be about whether it affects your ranking in SERPs. When users type in a search query, search engines go through their indexes and find relevant content. Then, they rank the results according to relevance. For crawling and indexing to be effective, web pages should be visible and accessible.
There are also things you can do if there are certain pages that you don’t want search engines to crawl and index. While there may be reasons why you want to do this, you need to make sure that the rest can be found through search engines’ crawling and indexing protocols.
Google Indexing: Why Is Google Not Indexing Your Website
There are several possibilities as to why Google’s current crawling and indexing protocols haven’t encountered your site. It could be a problem with your SEO efforts because you’re not gaining organic traffic for your website.
Here are some of the reasons why your site isn’t indexed yet:
- Your website doesn’t have a sitemap.xml.
- Google hasn’t crawled through your site yet.
- Your website has a lot of duplicate content.
- It takes a long time for your website to load.
- Your website has crawl errors.
Google Indexing: Does the IndexNow Protocol Change Anything?
Recently, a spokesperson from Google announced that they would be trying out the IndexNow protocol, a new initiative from Yandex and Microsoft. This protocol is open to all search engines. With IndexNow, website owners will have all their web pages and content indexed instantly by the search engine.
According to Google, their Google indexing and crawling efforts are efficient, but they will see whether the IndexNow protocol can contribute to their current sustainability efforts. Now, Google is taking a calculated approach to this new protocol.
Google has also been vocal about being carbon neutral since the year 2007. According to Google’s statement, they’re well on their way to becoming carbon-free by 2030 — across all their campuses and data centers. As Google is all for making processes efficient, they will test out the potential benefits of the IndexNow protocol.
What makes IndexNow protocol different from the current crawling and indexing protocols is that there’s no need for web crawlers to check whether web pages have been updated. This process saves plenty of bandwidth, time, and resources for both search engines and website owners.
Here are some of the companies that are showing support for the IndexNow protocol:
- Cloudflare
- Akamai
- Wix
- Botify
- Yext
- Duda
How Does the IndexNow Protocol Work?
This protocol is user-friendly and simple. Website owners will have to create a key on their server and post the URL to the specific search engine. All IndexNow-participating search engines will get a notification for the change. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- First, generate a key, supported by the IndexNow protocol from this key generation tool.
- Once you have the API key, host the key in the root directory. Make sure that it’s in txt format. Doing this will help verify the ownership of the URLs you’ll be submitting.
- Start submitting URLs when you have added, updated, or deleted web pages. You can either submit a single URL or bulk URLs.
Why Did Google Change Its Mind?
Initially, Google didn’t participate in the IndexNow protocol. Based on their statement, they want to see whether this new protocol will help with their goal of becoming carbon-free in the future. It’s no secret that Google’s crawling and indexing efforts are top-of-the-line.
They’re involved in improving their crawling efficiency, and just last year, the search engine giant’s Googlebot supported the HHTP/2 — a much better data transfer protocol. With the entrance of the IndexNow protocol, the landscape of search engine optimization is evolving. Instant indexing makes it easier for websites to provide updated content across search engines.
Advanced Digital Media Services Is Here for You
As experts, we know that the IndexNow protocol is a game-changer in the SEO industry.
Although Google is still in the testing phase for the said protocol, this shows promise both for website builders and search engines. Advanced Digital Media Services provides clients with top-notch SEO services. We’re up-to-date on the latest trends and changes in SEO.
If your business is yet to dip its toes in the digital world, we’re here to help. We offer different SEO packages that fit your digital goals. Schedule a call with us today, and let’s discuss the future of your business online.
