What are Google Search Essentials?
Google Search Essentials are guidelines that Google recommends site owners follow to ensure that their content appears and ranks in Google Search results. It was formerly called Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Google splits its search essentials into three categories:
- Spam policies
- Key best practices
- Technical requirements
Spam Policies: You should avoid these activities to ensure that Google does not demote your rankings or deindex your site from appearing in search results.
Key Best Practices: These are suggestions for improving your chances of appearing on Google search results. These suggestions are primarily on-page SEO techniques necessary to rank on Google.
Technical Requirements: These are the requirements that Google requires sites to meet to appear in Google search results. The site should contain indexable content, be indexable by Googlebot, and return an HTTP 200 OK success status code.