Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Substantial difference between Number of Indexed Pages and Sitemap Pages
-
Hey there,
I am doing a website audit at the moment.
I've notices substantial differences in the number of pages indexed (search console), the number of pages in the sitemap and the number I am getting when I crawl the page with screamingfrog (see below). Would those discrepancies concern you? The website and its rankings seems fine otherwise.
Total indexed: 2,360 (Search Consule)
About 2,920 results (Google search "site:example.com")
Sitemap: 1,229 URLs
Screemingfrog Spider: 1,352 URLsCheers,
Jochen -
Those discrepancies would not concern me, but there are some differences between all the things you list:
Total indexed: 2,360 Search Console - this is likely a reasonably accurate list of the number of pages you have indexed in Google. You could use a tool like URL Profiler to check index status of specific URLs.
About 2,920 results Google search "site:example.com" - site: search is less accurate and will likely return a different number each time you do it, even if it's just moments apart.
Sitemap: 1,229 URLs: these are URLs you added to a sitemap because they are priority pages you want to make sure Google has indexed and hopefully ranked. You control this number.
Screaming Frog Spider: 1,352 URLs - Screaming Frog is going to start on your homepage and crawl the site attempting to discover as many URLs as possible. If you are not linking to a page, SF won't be able to crawl it. Google on the other hand may have old pages, old URL structures or pages that were linked from an external website in their index and they won't forget them.
A really important question is: how many pages do you have that you want to be indexed? Is Google's index bloated with pages that you want to keep out? Figure these things out, and then try to adjust your sitemaps, noindex, robots.txt as needed.
-
Thanks for your reply Dmitrii,
we have excluded all query parameters in search console so this shouldn't be an issue. What is also strange is that when I try to scrape the SERPS via a site:example.com search Google is only showing a fraction (about 700) of the 2,920 results.
Cheers,
Jochen
- ★
- ★
- ☆
- ☆
- ☆
MozPoints: 810
Good Answers: 47
Endorsed Answers: 20">- ★
- ★
- ☆
- ☆
- ☆
-
Hi there.
I think that as long as rankings are good (especially historically), there is no reason to worry, because google includes in index pages, which wouldn't be in sitemap - for example pages, generated with query parameters (domain.com?x=value). Sometimes these pages do not really exist by themselves (like filters in online stores), they only exist "on the fly".
Hope this makes sense and helps
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
-
No Index thousands of thin content pages?
Hello all! I'm working on a site that features a service marketed to community leaders that allows the citizens of that community log 311 type issues such as potholes, broken streetlights, etc. The "marketing" front of the site is 10-12 pages of content to be optimized for the community leader searchers however, as you can imagine there are thousands and thousands of pages of one or two line complaints such as, "There is a pothole on Main St. and 3rd." These complaint pages are not about the service, and I'm thinking not helpful to my end goal of gaining awareness of the service through search for the community leaders. Community leaders are searching for "311 request service", not "potholes on main street". Should all of these "complaint" pages be NOINDEX'd? What if there are a number of quality links pointing to the complaint pages? Do I have to worry about losing Domain Authority if I do NOINDEX them? Thanks for any input. Ken
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenSchaefer0 -
Google does not want to index my page
I have a site that is hundreds of page indexed on Google. But there is a page that I put in the footer section that Google seems does not like and are not indexing that page. I've tried submitting it to their index through google webmaster and it will appear on Google index but then after a few days it's gone again. Before that page had canonical meta to another page, but it is removed now.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | odihost0 -
What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?
Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Redirecting homepage to internal page (2nd Tier page)
We are planning to experiment redirecting our homepage to one of the 2nd tier page. I mean....example.com to example.com/page. We need this page to rank well, but it doesn't have much internal links or external back-links, so we opt for this redirect. Advantage with this page is, it has "keyword" we want to rank for in URL. "page" in example.com/page. Will this help or hurt us in SEO? I think we are missing keyword in our root domain, so interested to highlight this page. Thanks, Satish
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Google indexing pages from chrome history ?
We have pages that are not linked from site yet they are indexed in Google. It could be possible if Google got these pages from browser. Does Google takes data from chrome?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
XML Sitemap index within a XML sitemaps index
We have a similar problem to http://www.seomoz.org/q/can-a-xml-sitemap-index-point-to-other-sitemaps-indexes Can a XML sitemap index point to other sitemaps indexes? According to the "Unique Doll Clothing" example on this link, it seems possible http://www.seomoz.org/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic Can someone share an XML Sitemap index within a XML sitemaps index example? We are looking for the format to implement the same on our website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lakshdeep0 -
Should I Allow Blog Tag Pages to be Indexed?
I have a wordpress blog with settings currently set so that Google does not index tag pages. Is this a best practice that avoids duplicate content or am I hurting the site by taking eligible pages out of the index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSOC0 -
Should you stop indexing of short lived pages?
In my site there will be a lot of pages that have a short life span of about a week as they are items on sale, should I nofollow the links meaning the site has a fwe hundred pages or allow indexing and have thousands but then have lots of links to pages that do not exist. I would of course if allowing indexing make sure the page links does not error and sends them to a similarly relevant page but which is best for me with the SEarch Engines? I would like to have the option of loads of links with pages of loads of content but not if it is detrimental Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | barney30120