Before you can improve your Wix site's rankings, you need to understand the three-stage process Google uses to bring your pages into search results. Most SEO mistakes happen because people try to optimise without understanding this foundation.
Stage 1: Crawling, How Googlebot Discovers Your Pages
Google uses software called Googlebot, a web crawler, to systematically browse the internet and discover web pages. Googlebot follows links from page to page, building a map of the web. For your Wix site, this means every internal link you create is a potential pathway for Googlebot to find more of your content.
Googlebot does not crawl every page on the internet every day. It allocates a crawl budget to each website based on the site's authority and how frequently content changes. New or low-authority Wix sites may be crawled infrequently, sometimes once every few weeks. This is why submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console is so important: it gives Googlebot a direct list of your pages rather than relying solely on link discovery.
Wix-Specific Tip
Wix automatically generates and updates your XML sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Submit this URL in Google Search Console under Sitemaps. Once submitted, Google will check it regularly for new or updated pages.
Stage 2: Indexing, How Google Stores Your Pages
Once Googlebot crawls a page, Google's systems process and analyse the content, reading text, assessing images, parsing structured data, and evaluating the page's quality. If the page passes Google's quality threshold, it gets added to the Google Index: a massive database of hundreds of billions of web pages.
Not every crawled page gets indexed. Pages with thin content, duplicate content, or technical issues like noindex tags may be excluded. Wix has historically had issues with some pages not being indexed due to JavaScript rendering, though this has improved significantly in recent years.
How to check if your Wix pages are indexed
- 1Open Google Search Console and go to the URL Inspection tool
- 2Enter the full URL of the page you want to check
- 3Look for "URL is on Google", this confirms the page is indexed
- 4If it shows "URL is not on Google", click "Request Indexing" to prompt Googlebot
- 5Check the Coverage report for site-wide indexing issues
Stage 3: Ranking, How Google Decides the Order
Ranking is the process of determining which indexed pages should appear for a given search query, and in what order. Google's ranking algorithm uses over 200 known signals, including relevance, authority, page experience, and E-E-A-T, to rank pages. Understanding that crawling and indexing must happen before ranking is key: if your pages aren't indexed, no amount of optimisation will get them ranking.
Key Insight
The three stages are sequential: Crawl → Index → Rank. Fixing a ranking problem on a page that isn't indexed is impossible. Always confirm indexing before worrying about rankings.
Common Wix Crawlability Issues to Fix Today
- Pages accidentally set to "noindex" in the Wix SEO panel, check Settings > SEO (Google) for every important page
- Missing or broken internal links that leave pages orphaned from the rest of your site
- Slow page load speed reducing Googlebot's willingness to fully crawl the site
- Wix blog tags and category pages creating crawl waste with duplicate or thin content
- Password-protected pages that Googlebot cannot access
Complete How-To Guide: Checking and Improving How Google Crawls Your Wix Site
This step-by-step guide walks you through the exact process of verifying Google can crawl, index and rank your Wix site, and fixing the most common issues that block visibility.
Follow these steps to verify and improve how Google crawls your Wix site
- 1Open Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console and verify your Wix site ownership using the HTML tag method in Wix Settings > SEO > Site Verification
- 2Navigate to the Sitemaps section in GSC and submit your Wix sitemap URL (yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) if it has not already been submitted
- 3Go to the Coverage report (now called Pages in newer GSC) and check for any pages marked as Excluded or Error, noting the specific reason for each
- 4Use the URL Inspection tool to check your 5 most important pages one by one, confirming each shows URL is on Google
- 5For any page showing URL is not on Google, click Request Indexing to prompt Googlebot to crawl it within 24-48 hours
- 6Open your Wix site editor, go to Pages & Menu, and check that no important pages have Hide from search engines toggled on in the SEO (Google) tab
- 7Review your internal linking structure by clicking through your site from the homepage, ensuring every important page is reachable within 3 clicks
- 8Check your robots.txt at yoursite.com/robots.txt to confirm no critical page paths are disallowed
- 9Open your sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in a browser and verify all important pages are listed
- 10Remove or noindex any thin content pages (empty tag pages, test pages, duplicate content) that waste crawl budget
- 11Set up a monthly calendar reminder to check the Coverage report in GSC for new crawl errors
- 12Run a free crawl of your site using Screaming Frog (up to 500 URLs free) to identify orphan pages, broken links and redirect chains
Final Checkpoint
After completing these steps, every important page on your Wix site should show URL is on Google in the GSC URL Inspection tool. If any page still shows as not indexed after 7 days, check for noindex tags, thin content, or canonical issues before requesting indexing again.
Essential Resources
Google Search Console
Monitor how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks your Wix site pages
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Crawl up to 500 URLs free to find broken links, orphan pages, and technical SEO issues
Moz Beginner's Guide to SEO
Comprehensive free guide covering all fundamental SEO concepts
Google PageSpeed Insights
Test page speed and Core Web Vitals scores for any URL on mobile and desktop
