When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), understanding the status of your website pages is crucial. This is where "Indexing Status" comes into play. In simple terms, it refers to how search engines like Google or Bing have indexed your website pages. The process of indexing involves analyzing and storing the content of a webpage so that it can be retrieved quickly by search engines when someone searches for a related topic.
Indexing status refers to the current state of your web pages in search engine indexes. It helps you identify which pages are indexed and which are not. When you submit a sitemap to Google or Bing, their web crawlers will visit your website and index your pages.
If your web pages are not indexed by search engines, they cannot appear in search results. So, if someone searches for a keyword related to your business and you don't have any indexed pages around that topic, you will miss out on potential traffic.
Sometimes, webmasters encounter issues with indexing their site's pages. For example, they might have duplicate content issues or the wrong canonical tags in place. These issues can prevent search engines from correctly indexing their website.
Submitting a sitemap will help search engines crawl your website more efficiently by providing information about all of your web pages in one place. You can submit a sitemap to Google or Bing via their respective Webmaster Tools consoles.
When multiple URLs on a website lead to the same content, search engines may face difficulties determining which URL should be ranked highest in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). This is where canonical tags come into play - they help search engines identify which URL should be used as the primary one for indexing purposes.
The robots.txt file is a small text file that's placed on the root level of a website's server. It tells search engines which pages or sections of the site should not be indexed. You can use this tool to control which parts of your website are visible in search results and which pages should be left out.