Google picking up old pages
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I recently redesigned a site that had all the keywords it was ranking for going to the home page. Now I have specific pages for each of these keywords but I'm seeing the home page (not the page that, if I do an on page optimization by hand in MOZ gives me an A rating) showing up in the auto reports (assuming pages Google sees for these keywords related to the url) as F's. They're all pointing to the home page. I've redirected the old index.html home page to the new but I suspect the reason is actually these pages (were) ranking for these terms (though none too well - all but one were not in the top 50 and one was 45) because these rankings are all dropping as well. I'm at a loss, with the site replaced, as to how to correct this and tell Google these keyword phrases all have their own pages now. I've dug through this forum and the only applicable answer I can see would be to add these phases to the home page (where they all rank for now) with anchored links to their new (A rated by Moz for these terms when I hand enter them) singular pages? Or is it just a waiting game?
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It could be months or it could be days--like I said, you just have to wait it out. With that many pages focused on keywords pertaining just to pressure washing, you're really going to need to get some links happening to the site to get it crawled and all those pages to show up in search results. Be sure to watch A Manifesto of Content Marketing - Moz and the-guide-to-developing-a-content-strategy-for-boring-industries
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Thanks Chris. It's disturbing to watch what little foothold they had (these 5 keyword/phrases) decline. The previous site had 5 pages in total with a service page that listed all of their services in one-line sentences. I know have 80+ pages that cater to each keyword/phrase specifically and many are already taking off. Unfortunately the client sells pressure washing and roof cleaning - not the kind of service people generally like and share but I do plan on introducing some Facebook/Twitter discounts so perhaps I can implement a request to share as terms for the discount. Any ida how long Google may keep these old pages (regardless of the 301) indexed for these keywords?
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You just have to wait it out. I'm assuming that yours is a new site, which means you'll need a degree of patience when it comes to waiting for google to index changes. I'm guessing that you're already linking to those pages from your home page via the site's navigation, but that would only be a guess.
If you are, the next thing to work on is getting out into the social networks and develop a following of the audience members your site's content targets. Be sure the content you're creating for your site is worthy of engagement by those folks because you're going to want those people to be liking, sharing and linking to those new pages you've created--that's what's going to be the most help for them in the search results.
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