Google Not Indexing Description or correct title (very technical)
-
Hey guys,
I am managing the site: http://www.theattractionforums.com/
If you search the keyword "PUA Forums", it will be in the top 10 results, however the title of the forum will be "PUA Forums" rather than using the code in the title tag, and no description will display at all (despite there being one in the code).
Any page other than the home-page that ranks shows the correct title and description.
We're completely baffled! Here are some interesting bits and pieces:
-
It shows up fine on Bing
-
If I go into GWT and Fetch as Google Bot, it shows up as "Unreachable" when I try to pull the home-page.
-
We previously found that it was pulling 'index.htm' before 'index.php' - and this was pulling a blank page. I've fixed this in the .htaccess however to make it redirect, however this hasn't solved the problem.
-
I've disallowed it from pulling the description .etc from the Open Directory with the use of meta tags - didn't change anything.
It's vBulletin and is running vBSEO
Any suggestions at all guys?
I'll be forever in anyones debt who can solve this, it's proving to be near impossible to fix.
Here is the .htaccess file, it may be a part of the issue:
RewriteEngine On
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
Redirect /index.html http://www.theattractionforums.com/index.php
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.theattractionforums.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.theattractionforums.com/$1 [L,R=301]RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*.(xml|txt)(.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron|vbseo_sitemap/)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(..php(/.)?)?)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^forum/(.*)$ http://www.theattractionforums.com/$1 [R=301,L] -
-
Hey guys,
SEOmoz's software done a crawl for me, and we got a crawl error at this page:
http://www.theattractionforums.com/%3Ca%20href=
This translates to:
http://www.theattractionforums.com/<a href=
What do you think is going on? So confused!
-
Hi Guys,
I've fixed up the above, the 'meta name' and the 'title' issues - however this still doesn't seem to explain why Google wouldn't be able t crawl the page.
It also seems strange that Google would choose NO description over one that is provided. While theoretically plausible, I would find it extremely odd.
Thanks guys,
JC
-
I don't know if this is specifically related but I spotted a typo in your homepage's source code while reviewing this. You have this code: <metaname="robots" <span="">content="noodp,noydir" /></metaname="robots">
in your HTML head. There should be a space between meta and name in that tag. I didn't spot anything else that jumped out to me as wrong. I'd fix that tag for sure, and I hope someone else here can help illuminate further.
Best,
-
The reason it is not using your title is you have stuffed it with keywords
PUA Forums | The Attraction Forums | Free Men's Dating Forum | The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women into Bed
its 118 characters long, it should be 65 at most, google will not use such a title
somthing like
Free Men's Dating Forum | PUA Forums
would be better, remember its a title not a short story, just give the poeple an idea, dont try to give them a sales picth
google picks a description that matchs the query, it is hard to predict when it will use your description tag.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does redirecting a duplicate page NOT in Google‘s index pass link juice? (External links not showing in search console)
Hello! We have a powerful page that has been selected by Google as a duplicate page of another page on the site. The duplicate is not indexed by Google, and the referring domains pointing towards that page aren’t recognized by Google in the search console (when looking at the links report). My question is - if we 301 redirect the duplicate page towards the one that Google has selected as canonical, will the link juice be passed to the new page? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lewald10 -
Is it good practice to use "SAVE $1000's" in SEO titles and Meta Descriptions?
Our company sells a product system that will permanently waterproof almost anything. We market it as a DIY system. I am working on SEO titles and descriptions. This topic came up for discussion, if using "SAVE $1000's.." would help or hurt. We are trying to create an effective call to action, but we are wondering if search engines see it as click bait. Can you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tyler.louth0 -
Capitalization of first letter of each word in meta description. Catches more attention, but may this lead to google ignoring the meta description then more frequently?
Capitalization of first letter of each word in meta description. Catches more attention, but may this lead to google ignoring the meta description then more frequently? Same for an occasional capitalized FREE in meta description. Anybody had experience with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse1 -
Does Google Index URLs that are always 302 redirected
Hello community Due to the architecture of our site, we have a bunch of URLs that are 302 redirected to the same URL plus a query string appended to it. For example: www.example.com/hello.html is 302 redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc The www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc page also has a link canonical tag to www.example.com/hello.html In the above example, can www.example.com/hello.html every be Indexed, by google as I assume the googlebot will always be redirected to www.example.com/hello.html?___store=abc and will never see www.example.com/hello.html ? Thanks in advance for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommRulz0 -
JavaScript Issue? Google not indexing a microsite
We have a microsite that was created on our domain but is not linked to from ANYwhere EXCEPT within some Javascript elements on pages on our site. The link is in one JQuery slide panel. The microsite is not being indexed at all - when i do site:(microsite name) on Google, it doesn't return anything. I think it's because the link's only in a Java element, but my client assures me that if I submit to Google for crawling the problem will be solved. Maybe so, but my point is that if you just create a simple HTML link from at least one of our site pages, it will get indexed no problem. The microsite has been up for months and it's still not being indexed - another newer microsite that's been up for a few weeks and has simple links to it from our pages is indexing fine. I have submitted the URL for crawling but had to use the google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url/ method as I don't have access to the top level domain WMT account. p.s. when we put the microsite URL into the SEOBook spider-test tool it returns lots of lovely information - but that just tells me the page is findable, does exist, right? That doesn't mean Google's going to necessarily index it, as I am surmising...Moz hasn't found in the 5 months the microsite has been up and running. What's going on here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jen_Floyd0 -
Google Processing but Not Indexing XML Sitemap
Like it says above, Google is processing but not indexing our latest XML sitemap. I noticed this Monday afternoon - Indexed status was still Pending - and didn't think anything of it. But when it still said Pending on Tuesday, it seemed strange. I deleted and resubmitted our XML sitemap on Tuesday. It now shows that it was processed on Tuesday, but the Indexed status is still Pending. I've never seen this much of a lag, hence the concern. Our site IS indexed in Google - it shows up with a site:xxxx.com search with the same number of pages as it always has. The only thing I can see that triggered this is Sunday the site failed verification via Google, but we quickly fixed that and re-verified via WMT Monday morning. Anyone know what's going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingof50 -
Is a different location in page title, h1 title, and meta description enough to avoid Duplicate Content concern?
I have a dynamic website which will have location-based internal pages that will have a <title>and <h1> title, and meta description tag that will include the subregion of a city. Each page also will have an 'info' section describing the generic product/service offered which will also include the name of the subregion. The 'specific product/service content will be dynamic but in some cases will be almost identical--ie subregion A may sometimes have the same specific content result as subregion B. Will the difference of just the location put in each of the above tags be enough for me to avoid a Duplicate Content concern?</p></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | couponguy0 -
Site: on Google
Hello, people. I have a quick question regarding search in Google. I use search operator [site:url] to see indexing stauts of my site. Today, I was checking indexing status and I found that Google shows different numbers of indexed pages depends on search setting. 1. At default setting (set as 10 search result shows) > I get about 150 pages indexed by Google. 2. I set 100 results shows per page and tried again. > I get about 52 pages indexed by Google. Of course I used same page URL. I really want to know which data is accurate. Please help people!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Artience0