What I Learned About Google Indexing And What People Should Know

byChrisTowers

4.5K followers

3 days ago

I remember when I built my first website here, and I still have it to this day, and when I first started it, I thought that as soon as I published a post it would appear on Google within a few hours.

I had no idea how indexing really worked to be honest. I was just a new face here with the big dreams I think most of us have. I kept checking my stats and refreshing my browser like a lunatic, always thinking something was broken.

If you are new here at WA, you might be experiencing the same thing I did back then. So I wanted to share a few things here that I have learned and that would have saved me a lot of stress in the beginning.

The first thing is this

Google and the other Search Engines take their time.

Sometimes it is fast, sometimes it is slow. I have had posts indexed within a few hours, and I have had others take days or even longer. I have also had posts indexed within minutes of me publishing them.

There is nothing wrong with your site when things are slow. The search engines just work on their own schedule.

Another thing I slowly realised is that indexing is not the same as ranking.

When your post gets indexed, it simply means the search engines know it exists. It does not mean you will be on page one or even page seven. You are just officially “on the map.” The ranking part comes later on and as they learn more about your content and your website.

What helped me a lot was understanding that search looks at patterns, not just your single posts. If you publish one article and wait for things to happen, you will drive yourself insane. But if you publish regularly, even just once or twice a week, your site builds trust over time.

That is when your indexing becomes faster and more consistent.

I have also noticed that updating your older content helps the search engines come back to your site more often. A small change here and there shows activity, and they like that. It gives your site more chances to be crawled and noticed.

Another thing worth knowing is that internal links are important. When you link your new post to something older on your site, search engines can find it more easily.

These days, I do not think much about indexing at all. I publish, I update things when I need to, and I let the search engines do their thing. They always catch up eventually.

If you have just started out, and are worried because your post has not been indexed yet, just know you are not doing anything wrong.

I also came across a post from John here, one of our amazing members where he explains what to check if indexing seems off.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/johnmaluth/blog/when-excluded-by-noindex-tag-is-not-a-problem-in-google-search-console

A check it and forget it few things for you to go through!

So overall, sometimes things take longer than we want, especially in the early stages. But the more you build, the smoother it gets.

What about you? Are your posts getting indexed quickly, or have you had some slow ones lately.

Thanks for reading

Chris