What are the most effective ways to measure the performance and impact of your indexing strategy?

1 Crawl stats and errors

One of the first things you need to check is how well your site is being crawled by the search engines. Crawling is the process of discovering and scanning your web pages for indexing. You can use tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to monitor your crawl stats and errors. These tools can show you how often your site is crawled, how many pages are crawled, how fast your site loads, and if there are any issues that prevent crawling or indexing. By analyzing these metrics, you can identify and fix any problems that might affect your indexing performance, such as broken links, server errors, robots.txt rules, or duplicate content.

2 Index coverage and status

Another important metric to track is how many of your web pages are actually indexed by the search engines. Index coverage and status refer to the percentage and quality of your pages that are included in the search engine's database. You can use the same tools as before to check your index coverage and status. These tools can show you how many pages are indexed, how many are excluded, and why. They can also alert you of any issues that might affect your index quality, such as non-canonical URLs, redirects, noindex tags, or manual actions. By reviewing these metrics, you can optimize your site structure and content to ensure that your most important pages are indexed and ranking well.

3 Sitemaps and URL inspection

One of the best ways to improve your indexing strategy is to use sitemaps and URL inspection tools. Sitemaps are files that list all the pages on your site and provide information about their priority, frequency, and last modification date. URL inspection tools are features that allow you to test and submit individual URLs for indexing. You can use sitemaps and URL inspection tools to communicate with the search engines and tell them which pages you want them to crawl and index. You can also use them to update the search engines about any changes or additions to your site, and to request re-indexing of any pages that have been modified or fixed.

4 Search performance and analytics

The ultimate goal of your indexing strategy is to rank well on the search results and drive organic traffic to your site. Therefore, you need to measure how your indexed pages are performing on the search engines and how they are attracting and engaging your audience. You can use search performance and analytics tools to track and evaluate your search performance and analytics. These tools can show you how many impressions, clicks, and conversions your pages are generating, what keywords they are ranking for, what position they are occupying, and how they compare to your competitors. By analyzing these metrics, you can assess the effectiveness and impact of your indexing strategy, and identify and capitalize on any opportunities or gaps.

5 Indexing experiments and tests

The final way to measure your indexing strategy is to conduct indexing experiments and tests. Indexing experiments and tests are methods of comparing and testing different versions of your pages or elements to see how they affect your indexing performance and results. You can use indexing experiments and tests to experiment with different aspects of your site, such as titles, meta descriptions, headings, content, images, schema, or links. You can use tools like Google Optimize, Bing Experiments, or A/B testing software to run and measure your indexing experiments and tests. By doing so, you can optimize your site for the best indexing and ranking outcomes, and learn what works and what doesn't for your site and audience.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?