Field notes for
work worth finding.
Practical guidance · Original editorial · Published 9 November 2026
The small website owner’s field guide to indexing
A practical sequence from a published page to trustworthy indexing evidence.
How to audit a sitemap without making it a bigger problem
Check the addresses you want discovered, rather than treating every URL as a candidate.
Robots.txt and noindex solve different problems
Separate crawl permission from indexing instructions before changing either.
A canonical tag is a decision about which page matters
Trace unexpected canonicals back to templates, duplicates and real publishing intent.
IndexNow: verify your site before sending changed URLs
A careful key-file workflow with receipts that do not pretend to be indexing proof.
What Search Console URL Inspection can actually tell you
Separate the indexed version, live eligibility and a request to revisit.
A publishing checklist for a blog that ships every day
A hypothetical daily publishing team turns checks into a quiet release habit.
The indexing handover a freelance website client can use
An illustrative handover that explains ownership, evidence and the next check.
An indexing routine for a small portfolio of websites
Keep separate sites comparable without pretending they share one search identity.
RSS or sitemap: which should your publication maintain?
Keep both when they serve readers and discovery, using one content source.
A crawl audit and an indexing report are different products
Know which evidence you are buying before comparing dashboards.
Your page is not indexed. What should you check next?
A calm decision sequence for access, discovery, duplication and content questions.