Definition

Google Index may be defined as a big data structure which contains all the data stored on Google servers. Basically, it is the database of all the web addresses that can be shown in Google search results. It is the basic requirement in order to have Google search the way it is known today.

Google’s database

The database within which the indexing is done is not a static category. It is very dynamic, changing every second as new data is being entered. The expanding is done with a process called crawling and the updating is continuous. Google has a large amount of computers for server purposes and their 24/7 job is to browse websites, explore links and save the distance among them in the Google Index.

Crawling

Crawler is the common name for software used to discover and index webpages. Google’s crawler is called Googlebot and it is a part of Spider software. Crawling basically means visiting websites, collecting their URLs, sitemaps and other data and sending them for indexing.

Google ranking

How can an average internet user benefit from this? Every internet user knows that Google offers the biggest database which can be very easily accessed. With the right keywords almost anything can be found.

The more advanced users are those who have their own websites. Knowing how indexing and crawling work can help them optimize their sites, create quality content for it and, finally, attract more visitors.

Business owners have one more goal: to generate as many sales as possible through their website.

All of those users have something in common. The most important thing for all of them regarding Google search is Google ranking. Those who use Google for search most of the time prefer websites on first few pages of the search results. Website owners, business or non-business, have one mutual goal – to get the highest Google ranking. Practically, it means getting the website to be the first in the search results when certain keywords are entered in the search field.

In order to achieve this, some conditions must be fulfilled. There are actually around 200 factors affecting the rank of a specific website on Google search. Some of them are:

  1. Placement of keywords
  2. Content length
  3. Original content
  4. Page loading speed
  5. Image captions, descriptions and/or file names
  6. Updates frequency
  7. Backlinks and their quality
  8. Social media shares
  9. Repeat traffic