Old homepage in google on branded keyword
-
Hello there,
I have a strange problem:
if you search "probike" (romanian google.ro), i get an OLD homepage with https://www.probike.ro , and my new homepage is https://probike.ro, the real problem is that title/meta description are not available (see attachment).
Redirect 301: Ok
Robots.txt: Ok
Sitemap: OkHelp, is annoying
With respect,
Andrei
-
Other stuff (since I was able to reproduce exactly with a Romanian proxy):
https://d.pr/i/sSkF9X.png (screenshot)
So above you can see some links boxed in green, which have properly updated URLs (HTTPS only no WWW prefix) whereas the entries in red contain links which still contain the WWW protocol (incorrect, not updated)
I can see that the GMB (Google My Business) listing is still linking to a very old version of the URL (HTTP WWW, so wrong protocol and prefix) - updating that might also be a positive signal to Google which could help
I notice that the redirect (sometimes) doesn't go to OPs homepage, it goes to a child-variant of the homepage which contains parameters assumedly for tracking purposes (e.g: "https://probike.ro/?SID=nn565sjakv33nk6h2haenvbr7k"). The thing is, it's not (always) going 'straight' to the 'clean' version of OPs homepage (sometimes it does, sometimes not), and Google can sometimes be slightly adverse to indexing and listing parameter-based child URLs (unless they significantly alter content in a truly useful way, which this does not)
Check out this video which shows it working perfectly as it should do, in Firefox:
https://d.pr/v/v3lIiS (video)
Looks fine right? But when I try in Chrome:
https://d.pr/v/IABstn (video)
... just so you know, I have sometimes had the redirect work fine in Chrome and at other times I have seen the failure in Firefox, so it's not browser specific. I think it actually has more to do with session data or cookies, as I can usually reproduce the issue when I clear all browsing data, but every time I try to repeat it after that it's less likely to happen (in series)
If Googlebot is following the 301 to some weird parameter URL instead of the true homepage that could be why Google is taking SO long to update this
-
Hi Andrei,
Found your issue: There is an already blocked in robots.txt parameter added when redirected from www to non-www.
I'm attaching an image so you can follow me better.
I used this web: whregoes.com
To solve this issue, I'd try to figure out why that parameter is being added, and remove it or allow its crawling.That parameter it's blocked in the 2nd line of your robots.txt:
Disallow: /*?Another way to check what's going on is via the inspect URL tool in search Console.
1- Log in to the www property
2- Inspect URL, only the home page (https://www.probike.ro)
3- Ask to check the live version
4- (wait a few seconds) Google will tell you what they are seeing
--> I guess here you'll find the message that it's being blocked in robots.txtAlso, checking your declared sitemap, it goes to a 404 page. You'd want to take a look here: https://probike.ro/pub/sitemap.xml
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston
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
-
Google Not Indexing Submitted Images
Hi Guys! My question isn't too dissimilar to one asked a couple of years ago, regarding Google and image indexing, but having put my web address into a Google image search, I get a return of 15 images, so something isn't right. 5 months ago I submitted our 'new' site to Google webmaster. We have just moved it onto a Shopify platform. They (Shopify) are good at providing places to add titles and Alt tags and likewise we fill them in (so that box ticked!) However I have noticed over the last couple of months that despite 161 images being submitted, only 51 have been indexed. Furthermore and as I said earlier, when you put our site, site:http://www.hartnackandco.com into Google images, it only returns a total of 15 images. Any suggestions and help would be wonderful! Cheers Nick
Technical SEO | | nick_HandCo0 -
Fetch as Google issues
HI all, Recently, well a couple of months back, I finally got around to switching our sites over to HTTPS://. In terms of rankings etc all looks fine and we have not move about much, only the usual fluctuations of a place or two on a daily basis in a competitive niche. All links have been updated, redirects in place, the usual https domain migration stuff. I am however, troubled by one thing! I cannot for love nor money get Google to fetch my site in GSC. No matter what I have tried it continues to display "Temporarily unreachable". I have checked the robots.txt and it is on a new https:// profile in GSC. Has anyone got a clue as I am stumped! Have I simply become blinded by looking too much??? Site in Q. caravanguard co uk. Cheers and looking forward to your comments.... Tim
Technical SEO | | TimHolmes0 -
Page disappeared from Google index. Google cache shows page is being redirected.
My URL is: http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/converse Hi. The week before last, my top Converse page went missing from the Google index. When I "fetch as Googlebot" I am able to get the page and "submit" it to the index. I have done this several times and still cannot get the page to show up. When I look at the Google cache of the page, it comes up with a different page. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/converse shows: http://shop.nordstrom.com/c/pop-in-olivia-kim Back story: As far as I know we have never redirected the Converse page to the Pop-In page. However the reverse may be true. We ran a Converse based Pop-In campaign but that used the Converse page and not the regular Pop-In page. Though the page comes back with a 200 status, it looks like Google thinks the page is being redirected. We were ranking #4 for "converse" - monthly searches = 550,000. My SEO traffic for the page has tanked since it has gone missing. Any help would be much appreciated. Stephan
Technical SEO | | shop.nordstrom0 -
Can you be penalised in Google for excessive internal keyword linking?
I have an online shop and 3 blogs (with different topics) all set up on sub-domains (for security reasons, don't want Word Press installed in the same hosting space as my shop in case one gets hacked). I have been on the front page of Google for a keyword, lets say 'widgets' for months now. I have been writing blogs about 'widgets', probably about 1/4 of all my blog posts are linking to the 'widgets' page in my shop. I write maybe 1-2 blogs a week, so it's not excessive. This morning I have woken to fine that the widgets page in my shop has vanished from Google's index. So typing in 'widgets' brings up nothing. It hasn't dropped in the rankings, it's just vanished. A few weeks ago I ranked 3 or 4. Then I dropped to about 6. A couple of days ago, i jumped back up to 5 and now it's vanished. If you type in 'buy widgets', or 'widgets online' or 'widgets australia', I have the #1 spot for all those, but for 'widgets', I just don't exist anymore. Could I have been penalised for writing too many posts and keyword linking internally? They're not keyword stuffed and they're well written. I just don't understand what's happened. Right now I"m freaking out about blogging and putting internal links on my website.
Technical SEO | | sparrowdog0 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
When keywords are on the top of the google search engine then what to do ?
My two keywords are on the top of my desired market place that means google.co.uk . So now what should I do to sustain this position???
Technical SEO | | JohnDooley0 -
Is this a google dance?
My website keeps moving up and down in ranking but stays within page 2 to 3. Everyday its at a new position.
Technical SEO | | ragivan0 -
Why won't google rank my homepage
I have a site that ranks high on the first page for it's main keyword at both Bing and Yahoo but horribly at Google. It's a domain I recently acquired and am in the process of optimizing. My goal is to improve the relevancy for the site in Google so that the site shows up better for it's main keyword. With that said I've been working on building valuable links to the page and I would like some opinions on why the homepage is not ranking for the main keyword. Instead I have a junky content page that is ranking for the term. So in the event that you have a exact match domain showing up very high in Bing and Yahoo but not in Google for the homepage, what factors would you look at? Add in the complexity that a page other than the homepage is making grounds on the exact match keyword having moved up from "not in the top 100" to the 50's, what's my best solution to ranking the homepage? The site is optimized well and most inbound links predominantly point to the homepage.
Technical SEO | | DotCar0