How Google Works
Before you can optimise for Google, you need to understand what Google actually does. It's a three-stage process - and knowing each stage tells you exactly what SEO is trying to influence.
The three stages: Crawl -> Index -> Rank
Google's job is to organise all the information on the internet so anyone can find what they're looking for in under a second. To do this, it runs a continuous three-stage process:
Stage 1: Crawling
Googlebot crawls the web by following links. It starts from a set of known pages and discovers new pages by following every link it finds. This is why getting a link from an established website is so valuable - it helps Google discover your content faster.
What can block crawling?
Your website can accidentally block Google from crawling it. Common causes: a `robots.txt` file that disallows Googlebot, `noindex` tags on pages you want indexed, slow server response times that cause Googlebot to give up, or broken internal links that prevent Google from finding deeper pages.
Google Search Console (free) shows exactly which pages Googlebot has crawled, which it couldn't access, and why. Every Australian business should have this set up - it's the direct line of communication between your site and Google.
Stage 2: Indexing
Once Google crawls a page, it tries to understand it. It reads the text, analyses the structure (headings, titles, internal links), looks at images (including their alt text), and evaluates the overall quality and depth of the content.
Not every page that gets crawled gets indexed. Google can choose not to index a page if it thinks the content is too thin, is a duplicate of another page, or doesn't add any value. This is why content quality matters - it's not just about users, it's about passing Google's indexing quality bar.
The index is not the whole web
Google has indexed hundreds of billions of pages - but it hasn't indexed everything. New websites with no incoming links may take weeks or months to get indexed. Submitting your XML sitemap in Google Search Console dramatically speeds this up.
Stage 3: Ranking
Ranking is where SEO has the most impact. When someone types a query, Google retrieves every indexed page that could be relevant and runs them through its ranking algorithm - producing the ordered list of results you see.
Google's algorithm processes hundreds of factors in milliseconds. It's trying to answer one question: which of these pages will best serve this user's intent?
Google doesn't just match keywords - it tries to understand why someone is searching. "Best Melbourne restaurants" has informational intent (a list). "Book table Melbourne restaurant" has transactional intent. "Flower delivery near me" has local intent. Matching your page to the right intent is as important as matching the keywords.
The key ranking factors
Google has confirmed over 200 ranking signals. The most impactful for AU businesses in 2026:
What SEO actually changes
Now that you understand the three stages, here's exactly what SEO work is doing at each step:
Technical SEO improves the crawling and indexing stages - ensuring Googlebot can access your site, that pages get indexed correctly, and that your site loads fast enough to pass Core Web Vitals checks.
On-page SEO improves the relevance signals Google sees when it processes your content - helping it understand what your page is about and matching it to the right search queries.
Link building improves your authority signals in the ranking stage - more high-quality links mean Google trusts you more, which pushes you up the rankings for competitive queries.
- Google processes the web in three stages: crawl (discover) -> index (understand) -> rank (decide)
- Pages not in Google's index cannot appear in search results - always check Search Console for indexing issues
- Google ranks based on relevance, authority (backlinks), and experience signals (speed, mobile-friendliness)
- Search intent is as important as keyword matching - Google tries to understand why someone is searching
- SEO work maps directly to these stages: technical SEO helps crawl/index, content helps relevance, links build authority