Google's Biggest Misconception

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 2. September 2009 - 23:00

The biggest misconception is that Google indexes websites. Google does NOT index websites. Repeat after me, Google does NOT index websites. Again, repeat, again and again. That's to make sure that you don't forget it.

What? Yes that's right, Google does not index websites. Google only index web pages. There's a huge difference between a website and many web pages.

  • Website → All the web pages and how they relate to each others.
  • Web page → One single web page, independently of any other web page on your website

To see it in action, go to Google's webmaster tools

  1. Log in. You do have an account. Right?
  2. Sitemaps
  3. Look at the 2 columns: URLs submitted versus Indexed URLs. The URLs submitted come from your sitemap.

Google may have indexed only a few pages from your website and you can still be ranked very highly.

  • This is not only for Google but also for Microsoft's BING.
  • If somebody offers you to increase the ranking of your website, ask them to pay you, they don't know what they are talking about.
  • If somebody offers you to get Google to index your whole website, ask them to pay you, they don't know what they are talking about.
  • If somebody offers you to increase the ranking of some of your web pages, then he's the “real deal”.