What to expect...
This detailed, fast-paced but easy-to-follow training course dives deep into the fundamentals, from basic tactics to advanced strategies. Perfect for building a strong technical SEO foundation, you’ll learn to effectively manage how search engines crawl and index your site, and all in plain language anyone can understand.
Gain practical know-how and confidence in leveraging various crawling & indexing tools, tactics and insights. Plus, explore advanced tactics such as crawling Javascript sites, using log files and finding and fixing content quality issues. All in a friendly environment where you can ask any questions you can think of.
By the end of the course, you’ll know how to use crawling, indexing and log file data to optimise your SEO roadmap and create a higher quality, leaner and more efficient site… And walk away with the urge to immediately run back to the office, dive into the relevant data, and put everything into action.
Bringing a laptop to the session is recommended, but not required.
Who should attend this course?
Join this Managing Crawling and Indexing training course if you want to…
- Control how search engines interact with your site
- Create efficient, easily crawlable sites
- Confidently identify, diagnose and fix content quality issues
- And get answers to all your crawling and indexing questions!
Course Content
This jam-packed training course will be split into four key sessions plus breaks for coffee, lunch and post-training drinks.
Here’s a look at what you can expect to learn in this course:
1: Introductions & what crawl budget means
- An introduction to crawling & indexing
- How Google crawls, assesses & indexes your pages
- What happens when indexing goes wrong & how you can take control
- Crawling vs indexing problems
- Crawl budget – what is it, do I need to worry about it & how can I improve it?
- Different crawler types – the advantages of each & how to choose one
- Your Screaming Frog SEO Spider questions answered
2: Crawl analysis & indexing management
- What to analyse in your crawl data
- How to find crawl errors & the different ways of handling them
- How to audit your site architecture & internal link structure to optimise crawling
- The basics of log file analysis – what it is and what is suitable for testing
- Exploring Search Console’s Crawl Stats report
- Spotting crawl traps
- Using the robots.txt file to control which URLs can be crawled
- Using Robots tags to control crawling & indexing
- Using XML sitemaps to help content discovery & encourage crawling
- Using nofollow to stop links from being followed
- Faceted navigation – the risks, best practices & what to do
- Crawling JavaScript-based websites (and why it’s not as scary as you might think)
- How to use page rendering to mimic the way Google ‘sees’ & understands your content
- Mobile-first indexing
- Canonical tags – how they work & when to use them
- Pagination controls – to do or not to do? (and how to do it)
- The different ways you can “ask” Google to index your pages
3: Managing Indexing
- When & how to deindex, retire, or redirect pages
- Tools you can use for indexing analysis
- Monitoring indexing in Google & Bing
- Using the URL Inspection tool in Search Console
- How to spot crawling and indexing patterns for your site - and what we can learn about potential content quality issues
- Search Console’s Page Indexing reports – everything you need to know about Google’s classifications of your pages, and when to take action
- Why doesn’t Google want to index my page?
- How to find the poor-quality content plaguing your site
4: Dealing with poor-performing or poor-quality content
- How to communicate content quality issues and recommendations to stakeholders
- The power of content inventories
- Understanding Google's quality signals and how they impact crawling/indexing decisions
- Strategies for improving thin or low-value content vs. when to remove it entirely
- Group activities analysing real-world content quality signals together using live site examples or prioritising which non-indexed pages to improve, remove, or consolidate
What's included in your ticket?
Book onto this training course and you will get:
- A full day's training on your chosen topic
- Lunch included on your training day
- Full access to brightonSEO
- Bag of merch
- Video bundle to stream all the conference talks post event (UK only)
- Access to conference networking events and activities
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We may cancel courses which don't have enough enrolments, and if so we’ll let you know and give you the opportunity to swap to an alternative course or have a refund.
