Why has Google stopped indexing my content?
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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
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Yes, something like that appears to be possible.
I just now copy/pasted the URL above from my previous post and checked the source. The canonical is now correct.
In the first post above, when I clicked from the homepage, the canonical tag did not change. Only the URL.
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Anthony, I'm having trouble seeing the same thing you are. When I view the source code for that page, rel="canonical" has the correct URL (not homepage). Is it possible that you navigated there via ajax from the homepage, and thus the property didn't update?
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This seems like a very valid answer. Looking into it right now!
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It appears you have a problem with improper canonicalization.
I clicked on the first post I saw:
http://www.indieshuffle.com/two-door-cinema-club-next-year-rac-mix/
That page, has the canonical tag set to your homepage. That would be a great reason for Google to choose not to index your post. You are essentially telling Google your posts are your homepage.
Remove that canonical tag or change it to reflect the actual post URL.
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