In a recent video on Google’s Search Central YouTube channel, Developer Advocate Martin Splitt addressed why pages that have been indexed might not appear in search results.
Multiple Factors Affect Search Visibility
During the video, Splitt outlined several reasons why indexed content might not show up in search results:
“It’s either that the query is a bit weird or that the query hasn’t actually been asked that much or that we have other pages that we think will help the user more than yours.”
He continued by noting that user engagement may play a role in some cases:
“Especially if pages fall off the index again, that means that we thought they might be good but we found that users don’t really use them in search results. So we thought like, ‘Yeah, okay, we gave it a chance but, you know, others are doing better here.'”
This statement suggests user engagement might be one consideration in Google’s complex ranking system, though Splitt presented it as one factor among several, not necessarily the primary one.
Understanding Google’s Search Process
Splitt outlined Google’s search process as having several distinct stages:
- Discovery: Google learns that a URL exists (sitemaps help with this)
- Crawling: Google visits the URL to see what’s there
- Indexing: The page is added to Google’s database
- Serving/Ranking: When relevant to a query, the page may be shown in results
According to Splitt, pages that make it to the indexing stage still need to compete during the ranking phase to appear in results successfully.
What This Means
Splitt’s advice focuses on content quality:
“You want to have a look at your content because it’s very likely that your content isn’t really serving much in terms of queries coming in, and that’s why it’s not showing up in search results.”
For website owners and content creators, this suggests:
- Ensure content meets user needs
- Create comprehensive resources that address specific queries
- Consider multiple factors that might affect search visibility, not just user engagement
Splitt’s comments give some insight into Google’s thinking. However, they are only one part of the complex puzzle of Google’s search algorithm.
See the full video below:
Featured Image: Thiar04/Shutterstock
