E1026: Breaking down common SEO crawling myths and explaining why "crawl budget" is usually not the real problem.
We talk about crawling, indexing, authority, sitemaps, content pruning, duplicate content, and cannibalization. The legendary David Quaid, our guest, explains why more crawling does not mean better rankings, why XML sitemaps do not magically fix indexing issues, and why authority is often the missing piece when pages are crawled but not indexed.
Topics covered:
- Can you actually optimize crawling?
- Why crawl budget is misunderstood
- Crawled not indexed vs. discovered not indexed
- Why sitemaps do not solve most SEO problems
- How Google prioritizes crawling
- Why more crawling does not equal better indexing
- The role of authority in crawling and indexing
- Why internal links matter for crawl priority
- When technical SEO fixes actually help
- Why content pruning usually does not improve crawl budget
- How duplicate content differs from cannibalization
- When cannibalization becomes a real SEO issue
- How to think about slugs, folders, and overlapping pages
- Why new sites often struggle with indexing
- How to diagnose crawling and indexing problems more realistically
- Why HTML sitemaps can still be useful
This episode is for SEOs, site owners, marketers, and founders who are trying to understand why Google is crawling, indexing, or ignoring certain pages.
⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/
⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/
🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Can You Optimize Crawling
01:30 Sitemaps And Crawled Not Indexed
02:54 Authority Drives Indexing
04:54 How Google Triages Crawling
10:07 Internal Links Beat Crawl Budget
22:02 Tech SEO Myths And Stack Claims
25:20 Sitemaps Are Not A Todo List
25:54 Content Pruning And Root Causes
31:50 HCU Recovery And Lost Authority
34:19 Thin Content And Information Gain
35:16 Duplicate Content And Cannibalization
36:20 Duplicate Content Reality
37:05 How Pages Block Results
39:14 Cannibalization Explained
39:38 Slug Synonyms Traps
42:54 Niche Content Strategy
44:51 PAA And FAQ Risks
47:53 Diagnosing With SERP Data
49:32 When To Specialize Safely
53:56 Fixes Eject Or Noindex
55:54 Small Business Pitfalls
58:36 Audits And Misdiagnosis
01:01:00 Keyword Level Detection
01:05:14 Crawl Budget True False
01:06:07 Sitemaps And Authority
01:09:16 HTML Sitemaps And Nav
01:12:19 Wrap Up And Farewell
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
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