{"id":2206,"slug":"rule-two-wave-indexing-obsolete-as-literal-model","title":"Rule: do not present \"two waves of indexing\" as a literal current model — Google itself has called it an oversimplification; use it only as a teaching aid for why JS content can lag","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"internal","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["rendering-pipeline"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Do not present \"two waves of indexing\" as a literal current model. Google itself has called it an oversimplification ([[google-two-wave-indexing-officially-downplayed]]). The waves \"play less and less of a role\" and \"pretty much every website, when we see them for the first time, goes to rendering.\"\n\nUse the model **only as a teaching aid** for explaining *why* JS content can lag, never as a precise prediction of timing.\n\n**Why:** Quoting \"second wave\" as fact dates Candid's thinking to 2018-era SEO and undermines credibility with technically-fluent clients. It also primes clients to expect JS pages to \"automatically\" be indexed later, which is not how the current pipeline works.\n\n**How to apply:** If you reference it, frame as: \"Google used to describe this as 'two waves of indexing,' but they've since walked that back — what actually happens is that JS-heavy content can wait in the render queue, and there's no published timing.\"","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-google-search-lifecycle-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the lifecycle of a website in Google Search — from launch to mature standing and the perpetual re-evaluation that follows (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"google-two-wave-indexing-officially-downplayed","title":"\"Two waves of indexing\" — Google's Martin Splitt now calls it an oversimplification; \"pretty much every website, when we see them for the first time, goes to rendering\" and the waves \"play less and less of a role\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-25T15:19:39.293Z","updated_at":"2026-06-25T17:07:10.774Z"}