Homepage refusing to show up in Google (rest of pages fine)
-
edit
-
Ah, I was wondering since they may have entirely different pricing based upon who you talk to.
-
SiteLock
-
So, on an invoice, do you or the client pay Incapsula or SiteLock?
-
Exactly, I've been told that these problems surfaced around the time the firewall was put up. I've just removed the timthumb file and I'm working on disavowing the spammy links pointing to us. I'm considering ditching sitelock in the next few days and seeing if that helps at all. We were also looking at Sucuri as a firewall option as well.
-
All of the header checks I've done come back with Incapsula. I don't really want to get much further into that for a number of reasons. But if you're actually paying SiteLock that's pretty interesting.
But you're saying the site ranked for it's brand term, at least, before implementing either SiteLock or Incapsula?
-
This is a huge help. I spent some time yesterday going through the site and updating my links to https where possible. Those don't all appear to have indexed yet. The bit about the timthumb exploit is particularly helpful. My theme lets me disable that, and I can get rid of the timthumb php file. I'm still concerned that sitelock could be exaggerating the problem though, we started having these issues with google around when it was implemented.
-
The site is using Incapsula as a CDN and web application firewall. The site still has a timthumb file. So I wouldn't recommend stepping out from behind that right now.
A wildcard search on the domain yields a lot of spam backlinks. Check ahrefs.
-
The entire site appears to index fine. As Patrick pointed out, it appears some of the pages in the index aren't https. But I don't know when you made the move, so things may be chugging right along.
The issue is ranking. But I know what you mean.
So what we have is (not all bad, per se - just what I see):
- Previously hacked site
- Timthumb file
- Some very spammy links
- HTTPS implemented on unknown date
- Moved to CDN / WAF
- Redirects
No doubt, you're going to have to disavow the bad links. Take down requests are nice and all, and you should note them in your disavow submission, but you don't have to manually contact each individual link/domain. It's not really a fire-and-forget process. You can submit it more than once.
I would bet a shiny nickle the attack/hack exploited the timthumb file. The site still uses it. Stop using it. Find an alternative. All it does is resize images.
The https migration (redirects... etc.) is just a confounding factor.
After you've removed the timthumb file, request a security review. Also consider the site may still have issues from the hack. So fetch as google from Webmaster Tools. If you see anything different than the real page, you still have a problem.
Read a little more about recovering from a hacked site here. I think that's more than likely the core of the problem right now.
-
Let me guess - you're using SiteLock after you were hacked to keep them out?
SiteLock creates this issue frequently (we solved it for another Q&A user about a month ago.)
Disable SiteLock, check your settings are all right in Webmasters Tools and Fetch the page in WMT. Add a link to it on Google+ so it gets recrawled quickly.
I only see 1 backlink to the site from Ahrefs (https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains?target=www.newstaradhesives.com) and only 2 in Majestic (https://majestic.com/reports/site-explorer?folder=&q=www.newstaradhesives.com)
Very, very low authority & SiteLock - those would be the two I'd start with.
-
It absolutely was very hacked. I'm currently in the process of submitting takedowns manually for those spam posts in google's index. The site has been cleaned up and relaunched since. Could these be harming the indexing of the homepage as well?
-
I think Incapsula is throwing the false noindex tag. But yeah, that's just how Incapsula do. The home page shows just fine with a site: operator.
Judging by the anchor text I see pointed at the site... and the Timthumbs.php file... the site was very very hacked at some point.
Edit: Yep. It was hacked until late last year.
-
Hi Patrick
Thanks for taking a look. If I could ask, where are you seeing this noindex tag and what are you using to see it? I've got my homepage set up in the yoast seo plugin to index and follow, and I had also previously added a into my header just to make sure. My suspicion is that the sitelock firewall installed on our site right now is blocking robots. Does this make any sense?
Thanks again
-
I wanted to attach this image - in my crawl, I am getting a "noindex,nofollow" but your code isn't showing it. I would check with your web development team to see what exactly is happening and how this can be fixed.
-
Hi there
It appears your homepage has a "noindex,nofollow" tag - change this to "index,follow". Make sure this is fixed across the site.
If for some reason that doesn't work (which it will):
Have you checked to see if you have a manual action?
If you have multiple URLs going on with the same content - check your canonical tags and make sure you do a content audit to see if this information can be removed, consolidated, or updated. Your SSL seems to not be configured properly also.
I would also make sure that you do a backlink audit to see if any links can be removed or updated. Also, check your local SEO presence and that everything is on point and consistent. Same with on-site SEO.
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
-
Do we still have this Page Rank / Link juice / Link equity? So this dilution concept?
Hi all, As per the traditional or standard SEO rules, we have this link juice and dilution concept. Many websites have changed their linking structure with this with the beleif "the more number of pages, the PR will get diluted". Then many websites avoided more number of pages from homepage to avoid link juice dilution. Even we followed same. But I just wonder it's still the same way Google handles websites and rankings as per the links. And many websites even avoid more number of 2nd tier/hierarchy pages to avoid link dilution. I have gone through our competitors where they been employing lot of top level pages like 2nd tier/hierarchy pages but still doing good at rankings. Please share your views and suggestions on this. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Increase in Soft 404s due to Custom 404 page?
Hi all, We have noticed recently soft 404s are increasing day by day; which are landing on our custom 404 page created a month back. Other 404 pages are NOT landing on custom 404 page. Does this custom 404 page hurting us by causing an increase in soft 404s? Our CMS is WordPress. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Google pagespeed / lazy image load
Hi, we are using the apache module of google pagespeed. It works really great, helps a lot. But today I've asked me one question: Does the "lazy load" feature for images harm the ranking? The module reworks the page to load the images only if the are visible at the screen. Is this behavior also triggered by the google bot? Or are the images invisible for google? Any expirience about that? Best wishes, Georg.
Web Design | | GeorgFranz0 -
Best Practices for home page design for ecommerce website
I know this question is not directly related to SEO, but I figured I have been getting some good help from this forum, so why not? The website is www.vrtack.com. I am looking to redesign the home page. It is an ecommerce website selling equestrian clothing and leather goods. My goals are: 1. Reduce the very high bounce rate and drop-off rate. 2. Fine tune the relevancy of the website towards a handful of keyword phrases. 3. Engage the visitor to create better click-through and to increase the average time spent on the page/site. 4. Page Loading time is of importance. It has to load quickly. I would love to hear some specific suggestions, examples, best practices.
Web Design | | amitramani0 -
How to change the entire contents and design in my site without getting troubles with google?
Hello everyone This is my first post over here. In the next few weeks we going to change the entire content and design in our site. The site has 240 pages with poor contents and design. Except 301 redirects for all the old url’s I wanted to consult with you what is the right way to do it without harm my organic traffic that come from google? How google refers to this kind of changes? Which steps should I need to take to do it properly? Hope to get your help in the issue. Tahnks in advance.
Web Design | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Google Tag Manager
I recently discovered the Google Tag Manager and I am in the process of updating many of my websites with this feature. I am using Tag Manager to mange Google Analytics, Google Remarketing, Alive Chat, Woopra, etc. I have one question about how Tag Manager actually works. As best I can tell, the Tag Manager code snippet that I insert into my web pages is the same for all my websites and does not include a unique ID. If that is the case, then Tag Manager must search all the URLs in the TM database to find a match. What is to stop someone else from adding some rules for my URLs to their containers? I expect Google has a method to ensure proper matching, but I'm not clear on how that is enforced. Best,
Web Design | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Are there any studies, statistics or measurable impact of using mixed fonts on landing pages?
Are there any studies, statistics or measurable impact of using mixed fonts on landing pages? One of our landing pages is using five variations of the Arial font where size, strength (bold, italics) and color all vary. One camp internally believes that this okay, whereas another camp wants to standardize the presentation where there's less variance (such as a heading as one and the body copy as another). Have you been through a similar trial or test in the past? I've seen some instances of a Marketing Sherpa study on the topic, but no real numbers to support one thing or another. I've attached an example image of our current LP. I have a lot of strong opinions on a number of items - but we're looking to have an immediate internal discussion on the font issue first. Thanks! GIzA8.jpg
Web Design | | eMagineSEO0 -
How to make Address Text Clickable for Google Map Link for Mobile Device
How do I make the address text on the site a clickable link for mobile devices?
Web Design | | bozzie3110