Understanding how Google’s index works is key to mastering SEO.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing your website so that Google sees it, views it as trustworthy, and ranks it as high as possible for relevant queries. But before you start worrying about which keywords you’re optimized for or how authoritative your site is, you need to make sure your site is indexed.
Think of Google as a massive library, full of different books that people might want to read—these books represent websites, and the people represent average search users. Say a user comes in and wants a book about whaling. If all the books were scattered about the library, with more coming in every day, it would be a nightmarish task to try and find a book on whaling—which is where Google’s index comes into play.
Think of the index as analogous to the Dewey Decimal system—it gives Google a way to shelve all the books in neat rows, columns, and hierarchies. That way, when a user searches for a book on whaling, it doesn’t have to sort through millions of books; instead, it can quickly jump to a specific area where that book might be located, and give users a handful of top options.
Of course, Google’s search index is far more complex than a simple categorical listing, but that’s an easy way to conceptualize the idea.
Making Sure Your Site Is Indexed
If your site isn’t indexed, it won’t be listed in searches. So what can you do to make sure your site is indexed?
Thankfully, Google is pretty good at indexing every page on every site in existence; in fact, it employs a tiny army of robots, called “crawlers” or “spiders,” which scour the web for new material to index. If you create a new site, as long as you aren’t intentionally blocking these spiders, you should have your site indexed within a few days. If this doesn’t happen, there may be something wrong with your site.
You can also hasten the process by submitting your site to Google, but this isn’t strictly necessary.
If you’d like to learn more about search indexing, or how to optimize your site, contact Quez Media today!
