E1063: If you run a large ecommerce site with hundreds of thousands or millions of product pages, and only a fraction of them are indexed, you are not alone.

David Quaid and I break down why Google indexes only 30-40% of pages on many large sites - and what actually determines whether a product page gets crawled and indexed.

This conversation covers how authority flows through large websites, why crawl budget is often misunderstood, and how URL structure, topical relevance, and internal architecture affect indexation.

If you manage or market a large ecommerce site, this episode will change how you think about SEO.

What we cover: - Why "discovered, not indexed" is a bigger problem than "crawled, not indexed" - Why adding more internal links doesn't automatically improve indexation - How Google's crawl pools actually work - Why pruning pages rarely fixes indexing issues - The role of the URL slug in determining whether a page gets crawled - How topical authority influences whether a product page is worth indexing - Why homepage backlinks don't help deep product pages as much as you think - How hub pages can bypass traditional site hierarchy - When to include keywords in subfolders vs. slugs - Why some large sites perform well with only 40% of pages indexed - What happens when authority "tightens" across your site - How to decide which product pages actually need to rank - The first three things to check when auditing a 1M+ product site - The real difference between crawl efficiency and authority shaping - How blog content can directly support deep product tiers

We also discuss: - Whether AI-generated product content hurts indexing - Why XML sitemaps do not solve indexation problems - The difference between semantic ranking and topical authority - Why step-by-step traffic decline often signals authority loss, not penalties

If you operate a large ecommerce site, this episode will help you think beyond crawl budget and start focusing on the pages that actually matter.

Drop your questions in the comments. We read them and often turn them into future episodes.

(And congratulations to friend of the podcast, Harpreet Singh, on his baby boy!)

⭐️ 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/

🚀 Learn SEO for free - https://freeseoknowledge.com/

💎 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 Indexing Crisis Setup 01:07 Google Tightens Authority 03:36 Crawl Pools Explained 05:03 Why Pruning Fails 06:17 Authority Shaping Model 08:40 Build Traffic Tiers 11:05 Slugs vs Folders SEO 20:07 Saved Search Hub Pages 22:01 Facets Parameters Strategy 22:55 Links to Deep Pages 30:16 Bypass Folder Layers 33:50 Root Pages Folder Names 36:19 URL Hierarchy for SEO 38:30 Redundancy and Slugs 46:48 Clicks and Authority Flow 47:43 Auditing a Massive Site 51:20 Google Authority Tightening 58:49 AI Content and Labels 01:02:33 LLMs and SEO Advice 01:05:24 Indexing Decision and Wrap

The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/

#ecommerce #searchengineoptimization #seo #dropshipping