Weird Google indexing issues with www being forced
-
IM working on a site which is really not indexing as it should, I have created a sitemap.xml which I thought would fix the issue but it hasn't, what seems to be happening is the Google is making www pages canonical for some of the site and without www for the rest. the site should be without www. see images attached for a visual explanation.
when adding pages in Google search console without www some pages cannot be indexed as Google thinks the www version is canonical, and I have no idea why, there is no canonical set up at all, what I would do if I could is to add canonical tags to each page to pint to the non www version, but the CMA does not allow for canonical. not quite sure how to proceed, how to tell google that the non www version is in fact correct, I dont have any idea why its assuming www is canonical either??? -
Personally it's something that I would nip in the bud, with 301 redirects. But if you are going to do that, make sure execution is flawless or you'll end up with problems
-
great thanks, I have access via ftp but the CMS is pretty locked down, do you think this would cause this site to perform so badly in SRPS though, its an old site and it really just does rank as I would expect. Will look into 301s thanks
-
You need to force one structure with 301 redirects. Canonical tags can and often are ignored, based on link and popularity metrics which Google have at their disposal. If one page has more of a legacy than its prefix variant (or more contemporary popularity) - then often Google will choose their own canonical, even if you have canonical tags deployed
Use 301 redirects to force a single structure. It can probably be achieved with one or two flexible redirect rules
Be careful of chaining. Sometimes these rules can do stuff like, do one redirect to the new protocol then ANOTHER to the new prefix. Ideally you want it airtight, all-in-one
If you are a CMS user only and your CMS is limited, stop worrying about it. There's nothing you can do
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
-
We need a bit of help from someone to fix the following issues causing speed issues on our website.
Hi We need a bit of help from someone to fix the following issues causing speed issues on our website.Does anyone know of someone that can help? Reduce server response time Optimize images Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content Avoid landing page redirects Leverage browser caching Minify CSS Minify JavaScript Minify HTML
Technical SEO | | Bev.Aquaspresso0 -
My www. domain has less page authroity than my non www.
I have a webmaster working on the site and I don't really remember how it got this way but it now appears that the non www have more PA than the www. I am redirecting it so I guess it's a good thing? should I move the site so that it's the root and www is the redirect? any help is greatly appreciated!
Technical SEO | | ecb090 -
Fake Links indexing in google
Hello everyone, I have an interesting situation occurring here, and hoping maybe someone here has seen something of this nature or be able to offer some sort of advice. So, we recently installed a wordpress to a subdomain for our business and have been blogging through it. We added the google webmaster tools meta tag and I've noticed an increase in 404 links. I brought this up to or server admin, and he verified that there were a lot of ip's pinging our server looking for these links that don't exist. We've combed through our server files and nothing seems to be compromised. Today, we noticed that when you do site:ourdomain.com into google the subdomain with wordpress shows hundreds of these fake links, that when you visit them, return a 404 page. Just curious if anyone has seen anything like this, what it may be, how we can stop it, could it negatively impact us in anyway? Should we even worry about it? Here's the link to the google results. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amshowells.com&oq=site%3A&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j69i58.1905j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8 (odd links show up on pages 2-3+)
Technical SEO | | mshowells0 -
How can I stop google indexing an image
I have put a map of cornwall on my site on the Corwnall Page, and for some reason Google.de has picked it up and shows it up in the top 4 images for a search for cornwall? The result is I am getting about 80% of the traffic coming to my site for the search Cornwall (I get about 50 unique visits per day, over 40 a day are landing on the Cornwall page. Is this a problem for my normal SEO as a Close up Magician? Will google start to think my site is about Cornwall? Should I noindex the image (I say that like I know how! - How do I noindex that image? ) Or is any traffic to a site good traffic, I imagine they will be clicking on the link landing on the page and then leaving, which I suspect is not good for google reputation. Any thoughts anyone Thanks Roger http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk Where they land http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/map-of-cornwall.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rogerlapin.co.uk/magician-cornwall-magicians-hire-cornwall&h=904&w=1000&sz=167&tbnid=9GFlDv3BTz4ikM:&tbnh=99&tbnw=110&zoom=1&usg=__-b4bUYWREU_wAy2M04LrsrkzZpw=&docid=AUFmzso0arbGDM&sa=X&ei=HLZ2UpGYDMrY0QWXp4D4Dg&ved=0CEgQ9QEwAw&dur=2958
Technical SEO | | rnperki0 -
Why has Google stopped indexing my content?
Mystery of the day! Back on December 28th, there was a 404 on the sitemap for my website. This lasted 2 days before I noticed and fixed. Since then, Google has not indexed my content. However, the majority of content prior to that date still shows up in the index. The website is http://www.indieshuffle.com/. Clues: Google reports no current issues in Webmaster tools Two reconsideration requests have returned "no manual action taken" When new posts are detected as "submitted" in the sitemap, they take 2-3 days to "index" Once "indexed," they cannot be found in search results unless I include url:indieshuffle.com The sitelinks that used to pop up under a basic search for "Indie Shuffle" are now gone I am using Yoast's SEO tool for Wordpress (and have been for years) Before December 28th, I was doing 90k impressions / 4.5k clicks After December 28th, I'm now doing 8k impressions / 1.3k clicks Ultimately, I'm at a loss for a possible explanation. Running an SEOMoz audit comes up with warnings about rel=canonical and a few broken links (which I've fixed in reaction to the report). I know these things often correct themselves, but two months have passed now, and it continues to get progressively worse. Thanks, Jason
Technical SEO | | indieshuffle0 -
Problem www/non-www domain rewrite
Hello, I've made a site for a client about 1 year ago. The rankings are quite okay, but the home page suffers from a penalty I think. I found out via OSE that PageAuthority strangely is higher on the 301-ed page www.myanmar-rundreisen.de - PA 32
Technical SEO | | hgw57
myanmar-rundreisen.de/ - PA 33 I don't understand what is happening here as I am using the usual htaccess 301-redirect: Rewrite domain.com -> www.domain.com RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.myanmar-rundreisen.de [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.myanmar-rundreisen.de/$1 [L,R=301] which is working fine with other domains ... I tried also (last line) RewriteRule (.*) http://www.myanmar-rundreisen.de/$1 [L,R=301] So thanks to anyone who can share an idea on that ... Guenter K04xy.jpg0 -
How do I stop www.mysite.com/ showing as a duplicate of www.mysite.com
I have run the campaigns software over a site and it is showing that www.mysite.com/ is a duplicate of www.mysite.com, how do I correct this? Is it a genuine duplicate page? My first thought was to use rel canonical but there is no page called / to put it on. Your suggestions welcomed Sean
Technical SEO | | ske110 -
Sitemap coming up in Google's index?
I apologize if this question's answer is glaringly obvious, but I was using Google to view all the pages it has indexed of our site--by searching for our company and then clicking the link that says to display more results for the site. On page three, it has the sitemap indexed as if it wee just another page of our site. <cite>www.stadriemblems.com/sitemap.xml</cite> Is this supposed to happen?
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0