Google refuses to index our domain. Any suggestions?
-
A very similar question was asked previously. (http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-google-did-not-index-our-domain) We've done everything in that post (and comments) and then some.
The domain is http://www.miwaterstewardship.org/ and, so far, we have:
- put "User-agent: * Allow: /" in the robots.txt (We recently removed the "allow" line and included a Sitemap: directive instead.)
- built a few hundred links from various pages including multiple links from .gov domains
- properly set up everything in Webmaster Tools
- submitted site maps (multiple times)
- checked the "fetch as googlebot" display in Webmaster Tools (everything looks fine)
- submitted a "request re-consideration" note to Google asking why we're not being indexed
Webmaster Tools tells us that it's crawling the site normally and is indexing everything correctly. Yahoo! and Bing have both indexed the site with no problems and are returning results. Additionally, many of the pages on the site have PR0 which is unusual for a non-indexed site. Typically we've seen those sites have no PR at all.
If anyone has any ideas about what we could do I'm all ears. We've been working on this for about a month and cannot figure this thing out.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
-
You make excellent points. I'll escalate this to "the pros" and see if they're able to bring their guru powers to bear on the trouble.
Thanks again Ryan for all your advice. It is greatly appreciated.
-
Looking at the site I can confirm the following:
-
the home page is tagged index follow
-
the status code for the home page is 200, an OK response
-
the robots.txt file is valid and clear
-
your crawl reports look fine to me
-
you stated your sitemap is received and 73 of 75 pages are indexed
-
your site is clearly not in Google's index as a site:miwaterstewardship.org search shows nothing.
-
I looked at your sitemap. I am not familiar with .aspx sitemaps but it does contain valid html links which apparently is enough for Google to utilize
-
you stated your site is not under penalty, as per Google
The possibilities are:
-
one of the pieces of information we are depending on is incorrect
-
we are overlooking a key piece of information
-
our understanding of SEO in this case is not complete
-
there is an issue with Google which is preventing your site from being indexed.
At this point I would suggest using your 1 PRO question on this issue, and reference this Q&A thread. While I don't believe we missed anything we should get the team to look at this issue and rule out every last possibility.
-
-
Thanks for the suggestions, Ryan. All of the previous changes were made before Google did it's last crawl. Here's the other info...
URLs Submitted = 78 / URLs in Web Index = 75 / The sitemap status is green check mark and it was downloaded today--June 14.
Geographic target has not been selected. Google has always been able to determine the crawl rate. I just changed the preferred domain to www.miwaterstewardship.org. That's the only change made recently.
This is another piece that baffles me. Check out the crawl stats for the site here: http://netvantagemarketing.com/temp/miws-crawl-stats.png
The bot is crawling an average of 63 pages per day and there's crawling activity since the middle of March. STILL, though...the domain absolutely will not appear in the index.
We're working with the client right now to see if we can get the site changed to a new IP address. The thought is that perhaps Google has somehow historically blocked the IP that it lives on now and changing to a new IP might get us out of jail. SUPER long shot...but those are the kinds of things we're trying now.
Thanks again for the help.
-
I was able to verify your robots.txt file is correctly set up. Did you make the changes before Google crawled the site on Saturday? You are correct that your site is not in the index. I would guess the robots.txt file was not modified until after the crawl. If it was adjusted pre-crawl, below are the next steps you can take.
Let's take a fresh look at your site:
-
you have a valid robots.txt file
-
your home page has a valid "index, follow" tag (not necessary, but it doesn't hurt either)
-
you have checked WMT and confirmed your site was crawled
In WMT, Site Configuration > Sitempas there is a "URLs submitted" field and a "URLs in web index field". What are those numbers please?
- It's a bit far reaching but while you are there please go over to your Settings tab in WMT. Geographic Target should not be checked, or if it is then Target Users in US should be selected. Preferred domain should be "www.miwaterstewardship.org" and I would recommend "Let Google determine my crawl rate" option unless you have a specific reason for doing otherwise.
-
-
Well...we're still in the virtual doghouse so-to-speak...
I made the changes that Ryan suggested on Friday. Webmaster Tools reports that the GoogleBot crawled the site on Saturday and that everything is OK in its eyes. Google responded to our reconsideration request over the weekend and stated very specifically that no actions were taken by the Google Spam team which would affect the rankings of our site or domain.
Still, if you search info:miwaterstewardship.org in The Ol' Goog, it continues to report that the site does not exist in the Google database.
Are there any other ideas of what we might be able to try?
This is a Dot Net Nuke site. Is there a DNN setting somewhere which might indicate to Google that it should not report our domain in search results?
Thanks for the looks and the help.
-
I agree with Ryan, your backlinks look great, website is structured well and has a great looking design. No signs of you breaking any of googles TOS.
-
Thank you EGOL. I consider myself a student of SEO, definitely not a master.
The Q&A forums here have given me a great opportunity to learn about SEO. I have been spending all my time this past month un-learning all the bad information I gathered from the internet, and learning SEO the right way.
The Matt Cutts videos, SEOmoz webinars, blogs and pro Q&A have all been immensely helpful. Those resources, along with the replies you and other mozzers offer have provided me an incredibly rich learning experience.
Thanks for noticing.
-
Thanks, Ryan. I noticed this as well but figured I'd leave it alone since Webmaster Tools was telling me "all is well" with the robots.txt file. I'll add the code like you suggest and we'll see what happens.
Thanks again.
-
Ryan, you have been giving some really valuable answers. Nice. Keep up the great work!
-
Fix your robots.txt. It is not set up as you suggested.
http://www.miwaterstewardship.org/robots.txt
User-agent: * Sitemap: http://www.miwaterstewardship.org/SiteMap.aspx I am unsure of what action a search engine would take upon encountering your code, but based on your post it seems that it blocks all agents. The correct code would be:
User-agent: *
Disallow:Sitemap: http://www.miwaterstewardship.org/SiteMap.aspx For more information about robots.txt you can take a look at: [http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html](http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html)
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
-
New SEO manager needs help! Currently only about 15% of our live sitemap (~4 million url e-commerce site) is actually indexed in Google. What are best practices sitemaps for big sites with a lot of changing content?
In Google Search console 4,218,017 URLs submitted 402,035 URLs indexed what is the best way to troubleshoot? What is best guidance for sitemap indexation of large sites with a lot of changing content? view?usp=sharing
Technical SEO | | Hamish_TM1 -
Home Pages of Several Websites are disappearing / reappearing in Google Index
Hi, I periodically use the Google site command to confirm that our client's websites are fully indexed. Over the past few months I have noticed a very strange phenomenon which is happening for a small subset of our client's websites... basically the home page keeps disappearing and reappearing in the Google index every few days. This is isolated to a few of our client's websites and I have also noticed that it is happening for some of our client's competitor's websites (over which we have absolutely no control). In the past I have been led to believe that the absence of the home page in the index could imply a penalty of some sort. This does not seem to be the case since these sites continue to rank the same in various Google searches regardless of whether or not the home page is listed in the index. Below are some examples of sites of our clients where the home page is currently not indexed - although they may be indexed by the time you read this and try it yourself. Note that most of our clients are in Canada. My questions are: 1. has anyone else experienced/noticed this? 2. any thoughts on whether this could imply some sort of penalty? or could it just be a bug in Google? 3. does Google offer a way to report stuff like this? Note that we have been building websites for over 10 years so we have long been aware of issues like www vs. non-www, canonicalization, and meta content="noindex" (been there done that in 2005). I could be wrong but I do not believe that the site would keep disappearing and reappearing if something like this was the issue. Please feel free to scrutinize the home pages to see if I have overlooked something obvious - I AM getting old. site:dietrichlaw.ca - this site has continually ranked in the top 3 for [kitchener personal injury lawyers] for many years. site:burntucker.com - since we took over this site last year it has moved up to page 1 for [ottawa personal injury lawyers] site:bolandhowe.com - #1 for [aurora personal injury lawyers] site:imranlaw.ca - continually ranked in the top 3 for [mississauga immigration lawyers]. site:canadaenergy.ca - ranks #3 for [ontario hydro plans] Thanks in advance! Jim Donovan, President www.wethinksolutions.com
Technical SEO | | wethink0 -
Google not index main keyword on homepage in 2 countries same language, rest of pages no problem
Hello, Two the same websites, two countries, same language http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl / http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.be The main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in top 10 of netherlands (steady position for 2 years) and in ** belgium** not in top 15****0 the main keyword "relatiegeschenken| but other keywords good positions, thats so strange I didn't understand and now every thing turned around suddenly: Now the main keyword "relatiegeschenken suddenly " not anymore in top 10 in the netherslandsits gone and other kewyords still good positions , now **main keyword suddenly in top 10 of belgium 2 years was not **other pages still ok. It are exactly the same websites and the same language. So double content But my programmer told me in google webmaster tools settings are right, so no problem with double content ? I really dont understand first main keyword in netherland in top 10 and in belgium not, now changed, now in belgium top 10 and not findable in the netherland on the main keyword. Maybe problem in code ? Maybe problems in code because websites are identical and active in two different countries wit same language ? No message about a penalty message in WMT, no spam links week i delete two strong but according to Linkdetox a bad links. I can not find a solution but its really important keyword that my customer want back in top 10 in netherland, like it was. All other positions and visitors are the same. Befor i have had this with belgium site, also main keyword google not index homepage. But suddenly no google show in belgium in top 10 Its turned around Kind regards, Marcel
Technical SEO | | Bossie720 -
Moving multiple domains into one domain
Hi, We're currently moving a group of websites (approximately 12) under one domain so we've moved from www.example.de , www.example.co.uk , www.example.com to www.example.com/de www.example.com/uk and so on. However I have read an article online today saying that this can lead to crawling complications. Has anyone done something similar and if there were any issues how did you overcome them? Many thanks
Technical SEO | | Creditsafe0 -
Best way to handle indexed pages you don't want indexed
We've had a lot of pages indexed by google which we didn't want indexed. They relate to a ajax category filter module that works ok for front end customers but under the bonnet google has been following all of the links. I've put a rule in the robots.txt file to stop google from following any dynamic pages (with a ?) and also any ajax pages but the pages are still indexed on google. At the moment there is over 5000 pages which have been indexed which I don't want on there and I'm worried is causing issues with my rankings. Would a redirect rule work or could someone offer any advice? https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl:default&num=100&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsl&filter=0&biw=1600&bih=809#hl=en&safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl%3Aajax&oq=site:outdoormegastore.co.uk+inurl%3Aajax&gs_l=serp.3...194108.194626.0.194891.4.4.0.0.0.0.100.305.3j1.4.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.SDhuslImrLY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=ff301ef4d48490c5&biw=1920&bih=860
Technical SEO | | gavinhoman0 -
Will password protecting my test sub-domain help keep the SEs from indexing it?
Hi, all. I'm working in an unfamiliar area here, so I hope someone can tell me if I'm out in left field. I am building a sub-domain called http://test.mysite.com, so that I can upload a client's still-under-construction site while working on it. When completed, it'll go up on his server, replacing his old site. Obviously, I want to ensure that it doesn't get indexed while it's on my test platform. A friend suggested that I password it with htaccess and htpasswd, since we can never be certain the SEs will obey site directives. My question is, what do you think would be the best (and hopefully, simplest) way to accomplish this? I'm no code-monkey, so "simple" is a big plus! Doc By the way, the platform will be Wordpress CMS.
Technical SEO | | Doc_Sheldon0 -
Moving domain.com to subdomain.domain.com
Hi, I like to do something, but first like to take some opinions from seomoz. My question is: 1. I have a domain: brandtrends.com and i like to move this from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com because: brandtrends.com is on the position #15 on the second page of SERP for my "brand" keyword. I like to move it under trends.brand.com but all inbound-links are @brandtrends.com What do you thing, if i move permanently 301 from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com does it rank under brand.com on the 1st page of SERP..? like to rank trends.brand.com under brand.com on results page...!!! I have the backlinks of brandtrends.com on my hands too, should i leave the inbound links @brandtrends.com and the new ones i build with trends.brand.com or should i change the inbound links from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com Hope you got it! THanks
Technical SEO | | leadsprofi0 -
Google shows the wrong domain for client's homepage
Whenever the homepage of my client's homepage appears in Google results, the search engine is not showing our URL as our domain, but instead a partner domain that is linking to us. (The correct title and meta description of our homepage is showing.) I believe this is caused by the partner website (with a much higher pank rank) linking to our homepage from their footer to a URL with it's own domain that 302 redirects to our homepage. Example: Link: http://www.partnerwebsite.com/?ad2203 302 redirects to: http://www.clientwebsite.com/?moreadtracking The simple fix would be for the client to ask for removal of the 302 hijacking link - but they are uncomfortable with this request since they had requested it prior, and their relationship is not the best. Is there any other way to fix this?
Technical SEO | | Conor_OShea_ETUS0