Index problems
-
“The website http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/nl/ does not show in the index of Google (site:vaneyckshutters.com/nl/). This must be the homepage in the Netherlands. Previously, the page www.vaneyckshutters.com was redirected to /nl/. This page is accessible now with a canonical tag to http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/nl/ in the hope to let /nl/ be indexed. When we look at the SERPS for keyword ‘shutters’, the page http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/ is shown in Google.nl on #32 and in Belgium #3.
Problem & question: Why is it that /nl/ has not been indexed properly and why is it that we rank with http://www.vaneyckshutters.com on ‘shutters’ instead the/nl/ page?”
-
New update at:
-
Mmm... I wonder if Google decided to do so because of some external factor as, for instance, being the backlinks your website has pointing to www.domain.com and not www.domain.com/nl/, especially if the backlink can be defined as coming from netherland's site or targeting nl audience.
Said that, I still think that maybe your best solution would have been putting all the NL version under the main root and not in a /nl/ subfolder.
Example:
- www.domain.com <<< NL version
- www.domain.com/fr/ <<<< French version
- http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/kwaliteit-shutters/
- http://www.vaneyckshutters.com/fr/applications-de-nos-shutters/
and so on.
Obviously, right now this is not an easy solution, because it implies a sort of migration (tiny and internal, but migration anyway with everything related like 301 from old to new URLs), but possibly is the really valid one.
-
Anyone?
-
Hi Gianluca,
Thanks for your response and thoughts. We have had a 301 redirect from the domain to the /nl/ but that is where the problem began. We had multiple situations.Original situation: .com redirecting (301) to /nl/ => no indexation for /nl/
Solution 1: Delete 301 redirect and add canonical tag to /nl/ and add href lang tags
The ranking has been better when implementing solution 1, but /nl/ has still not been indexed. But the pages after /nl/ are indexed. Strange isn’t it? We see the same trend at store.apple.com redirecting to store.apple.com/us/ but /us/ has not been indexed. Our possible solution #2 was to setup NL content on .com and FR content on /fr/. But I’am afraid that I will lose positions in Belgium (now ranking #3).
-
Hi Gianluca
My apologies here. I can see where my answer lacked when failing to bring up there not being a hreflang tag for the /nl/. My suggestion was to review the hreflang tag resources given, but I failed to mention that putting that hreflang tag in place would be a help to the site.
I understand my error, I appreciate you bringing it up and calling me on it. It won't happen again. Not taken personally at all - I appreciate you doing so, it helps me be more clear moving forward.
Patrick
-
Hi "Happy SEO",
first of all, my question is:
Why do you really need to have the /nl/ subfolder shown in the index, if the root itself is in Dutch by default. Experience tells me that it is much easier to receive links to a domain than a subfolder, so pretending to have this one indexed is somehow adding a difficulty in term of link building.
Said that, if you really want the /nl/ subfolder to be indexed instead of the root domain, why don't simply redirect 301 the domain name to the /nl/ subfolder?
From the little I know about your site, that would be the most logic thing to do
-
Mmm... Patrick, albeit you're sharing good resources and giving good general advices, you are not giving a proper answer... and as a moderator about International SEO Q&A I saw you tend to do this frequently.
For instance, you are talking about the hreflang annotation toward the /fr/ homepage, but you are not advising that it is missing the hreflang annotation to the /nl/ version of the site and URL. Using the hreflang would be probably more effective that using the rel="canonical" in a case like this one.
So, you are not really answering to the problem "Happy SEO" has, which is why Google is indexing the root domain despite of the canonicalization toward the /nl/ subfolder.
Please, don't take it personally, but it is something I had to point it out.
-
Hi there
First, I would make sure that you review international SEO resources and that you have everything tagged properly. Your /fr/ site is being indexed, and your .com has a hreflang tag pointing to the /fr/ page.
I would review your hreflang tags, canonical tags, and your geo-targeting in Search Console for all of your sites. Make sure that all of that is spot on and resubmit your sitemaps to Google.
Hope this helps - good luck!
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
-
Website indexing issues
My website is being indexed with both https - https with www. and no leader at all. example. https//www.example.com and https//example.com and example.com 3 different versions are being indexed. How would I begin resolving this? Hosting?
Technical SEO | | DigitalRipples0 -
Indexing Issue
Hi, We have moved one of our domain https://www.mycity4kids.com/ in angular js and after that, i observed the major drop in the number of indexed pages. I crosschecked the coding and other important parameters but didn't find any major issue. What could be the reason behind the drop?
Technical SEO | | ResultFirst0 -
Site Not Being Indexed
Hey Everyone - I have a site that is being treated strangely by google (at least strange to me) The site has 24 pages in the sitemap - submitted to WMT'S over 30 days ago I've manually triggered google to crawl the homepage and all connecting links as well and submitted a couple individually. Google has been parked the indexing at 14 of the 24 pages. None of the unindexed URL's have Noindex or follow tags on them - they are clearly and easily linked to from other places on the site. The site is a brand new domain, has no manual penalty history and in my research has no reason to be considered spammy. 100% unique handwritten content I cannot figure out why google isn't indexing these pages. Has anyone encountered this before? Know any solutions? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | CRO_first0 -
Why google removed my landing pages from index?
I made new website meko.lv. I put many work to it, to make page SEO friendly, sprites, reduced requests added SSL, got google page speed insights score 100/100, but in 2. october all pages in google webmasters disappeared from index. Could you please look at website and say whats wrong with it? They are all search results present in google but for how long. it is so annoying, you put so many work but in result get high spam score. It is obvious that new pages can not get good links in one month https://meko.lv/ google webmasters google page speed score: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmeko.lv%2F&tab=mobile q1LDHTn
Technical SEO | | Mekounko0 -
Do I have a problem with missing pages in Screaming Frog?
We have category pages and some of those pages have pagination due to us having additional items. Screaming Frog could not find the items that were after page 1. Is this a problem for Google? These item pages are still in the sitemap. I am sure they can find them to index them but does it hurt rankings at all.
Technical SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
Quality link not indexed after two months
Hi! Bit of an odd one, but I thought I's ask. Recently I wrote an article for Smashing Mag. It's was a great success and not really an SEO exercise at all, but after several weeks my author page hasn't been indexed (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/author/sam-wright/?rel=author). I just assumed give the quality of the site that it wouldn't take that long. I know it's just a case of leaving it, by any thoughts on why its not been picked up?
Technical SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
Instant Indexing
I've been working on a site for a while now, methodically building content and building trust and authority. Lately I've noticed that anything I publish there appears to be instantly indexed by Google, which surprises me. I haven't had this happen before so I'm curious. I'd be interested to hear the experience of others.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Continued Lack of Google Indexing
I run a baseball site (http://www.mopupduty.com) that is in a very good link neighbourhood. ESPN, The Score, USA Today, MSG Network, The Toronto Star, Baseball Prospectucs, etc etc. New content has not been getting indexed on Google ever since the last update. Site has no dup content, 100% original. I can't think of any spammy links, we get organic links day after day. In the past Google has indexed the site in minutes. It currently has expanded site links within Google search. Bing & Yahoo index the site in minutes. Are there any quick fixes I can make to increase my chance to get indexed by Google. Or just keep pumping out content and hope to see a change in the upcoming future?
Technical SEO | | mkoster1