Index (Search Index)
Google's database of web pages that have been crawled and stored for retrieval in search results.
Full definition
The search index is the massive database Google maintains containing information about every page it has crawled and deemed worthy of storing. When you search on Google, you're not searching the live web — you're searching the index. A page must be both crawlable and indexable to appear in search results. Factors affecting whether Google indexes a page include: quality and uniqueness of content, internal and external links pointing to it, crawl budget allocation, and technical directives (robots.txt, noindex tags, canonical tags). Pages in the index can be found with the 'site:' search operator in Google.
Real-world example
Using the search 'site:example.com' in Google returns all pages from that domain that Google has indexed — a quick health check for large sites.
Related terms
The ability of search engine bots to access and crawl a website's pages.
Read definitionThe number of pages Googlebot will crawl on your website within a given timeframe.
Read definitionAn HTML tag that tells search engines which version of a duplicate or similar page is the preferred one to index.
Read definitionThe page displayed by a search engine in response to a query, containing organic results, ads, and features like Local Pack and Knowledge Graph.
Read definitionReady to apply this to your business?
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