IndexLinks reference

Technical terms, in plain language

A reference for the concepts that shape discovery, crawling, and indexing.

• IndexNow

  A protocol for notifying participating search engines about changed URLs.

• Indexed page

  A page that a search engine has added to its searchable index.

• Canonical URL

  The preferred URL representing substantially duplicate content.

• Crawl budget

  The crawling attention a search engine is likely to spend on a site.

• XML sitemap

  A machine-readable list of URLs you want search engines to discover.

• noindex

  A directive asking search engines not to include a page in their index.