Google dropping pages from SERPs even though indexed and cached. (Shift over to https suspected.)
-
Anybody know why pages that have previously been indexed - and that are still present in Google's cache - are now not appearing in Google SERPs?
All the usual suspects - noindex, robots, duplication filter, 301s - have been ruled out. We shifted our site over from http to https last week and it appears to have started then, although we have also been playing around with our navigation structure a bit too.
Here are a few examples...
Example 1:
- Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place
- Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place
- SERP (1): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place
- SERP (2): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com
Example 2:
- SERP: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deaf+center+recount+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com
- Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount-
- Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount-
These are pages that have been linked to from our homepage (Moz PA of 68) prominently for days, are present and correct in our sitemap (https://www.normanrecords.com/catalogue_sitemap.xml), have unique content, have decent on-page optimisation, etc. etc.
We moved over to https on 11 Aug. There were some initial wobbles (e.g. 301s from normanrecords.com to www.normanrecords.com got caught up in a nasty loop due to the conflicting 301 from http to https) but these were quickly sorted (i.e. spotted and resolved within minutes). There have been some other changes made to the structure of the site (e.g. a reduction in the navigation options) but nothing I know of that would cause pages to drop like this.
For the first example (Memory Drawings) we were ranking on the first page right up until this morning and have been receiving Google traffic for it ever since it was added to the site on 4 Aug.
Any help very much appreciated! At the very end of my tether / understanding here...
Cheers,
Nathon
-
Sorry denverish, I have been really busy lol
Point number 3 refers to "pinging" your website, to let the search engines know your site has been updated. There are a few spammy ones out there, but I would try using:
http://pingomatic.com/
or
https://pingler.com/Pinging is a process by which you can inform major Search Engines and RSS direcotries(Google,Bing,Yahoo,Technorati etc) that you have updated content/URL's in your blog/Website. Pinging can also help in getting website changes indexed quickly.
-
Hi David, did you see Nathon's most recent response? Just checking.
-
Hi David,
Thanks for your response!
Yup, our sitemaps are recreated and resubmitted every day, and those pages have both been fetched (and rendered) in GWT. Not sure exactly what you mean by point 3 though??
-
Even though the 301's are all in place, have you notified Google of the changes? Might be why you are seeing them disappear
1. Sitemap recreation and resubmission
2. Resubmit via Webmaster tools using "fetch as Google"
3. Ping website for new pages
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
-
Tough SEO problem, Google not caching page correctly
My web site is http://www.mercimamanboutique.com/ Cached version of French version is, cache:www.mercimamanboutique.com/fr-fr/ showing incorrectly The German version: cache:www.mercimamanboutique.com/de-de/ is showing correctly. I have resubmitted site links, and asked Google re-index the web site many times. The German version always gets cached properly, but the French version never does. This is frustrating me, any idea why? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ss20160 -
Getting Google to index a large PDF file
Hello! We have a 100+ MB PDF with multiple pages that we want Google to fully index on our server/website. First of all, is it even possible for Google to index a PDF file of this size? It's been up on our server for a few days, and my colleague did a Googlebot fetch via Webmaster Tools, but it still hasn't happened yet. My theories as to why this may not work: A) We have no actual link(s) to the pdf anywhere on our website. B) This PDF is approx 130 MB and very slow to load. I added some compression to it, but that only got it down to 105 MB. Any tips or suggestions on getting this thing indexed in Google would be appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BBEXNinja0 -
Pages Indexed Not Changing
I have several sites that I do SEO for that are having a common problem. I have submitted xml sitemaps to Google for each site, and as new pages are added to the site, they are added to the xml sitemap. To make sure new pages are being indexed, I check the number of pages that have been indexed vs. the number of pages submitted by the xml sitemap every week. For weeks now, the number of pages submitted has increased, but the number of pages actually indexed has not changed. I have done searches on Google for the new pages and they are always added to the index, but the number of indexed pages is still not changing. My initial thought was as new pages are added to the index, old ones are being dropped. But I can't find evidence of that, or understand why that would be the case. Any ideas on why this is happening? Or am I worrying about something that I shouldn't even be concerned with since new pages are being indexed?
Technical SEO | | ang1 -
Should I remove these pages from the Google index?
Hi there, Please have a look at the following URL http://www.elefant-tours.com/index.php?callback=imagerotator&gid=65&483. It's a "sitemap" generated by a Wordpress plug-in called NextGen gallery and it maps all the images that have been added to the site through this plugin, which is quite a lot in this case. I can see that these "sitemap" pages have been indexed by Google and I'm wondering whether I should remove these or not? In my opinion these are pages that a search engine would never would want to serve as a search result and pages that a visitor never would want to see. Attracting any traffic through Google images is irrelevant in this case. What is your advice? Block it or leave it indexed or something else?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0 -
Index quickly a website? (Google,Bing..)
Hi, I would like to know what are the best practices in 2012 to index our website in less than 24 hours? (or less..) Thanks for your answer 😄
Technical SEO | | Probikeshop0 -
Google Not Indexed WWW name
Here is my domain - http://www.plugnbuy.com . When i see through "site" google not showing with WWW index but the same when i do without WWW.. it is showing in search. So yesturday i changed the setting from GWM to preferred domain as a WWW appear but today still not showing anything... Please help..
Technical SEO | | mamuti0 -
What happens to content under a category page that is not indexed?
We are reevaluating our URL structure. We have a flat architecture but would like to add subfolders per recommendations here and elsewhere. Some of our category pages are ad heavy/content light so we have them no indexed. We do have lots of quality content on the site that we would like to put under some of these keyword categories. Should we leave it flat? If Google does not see that category page then there will be no link from the homepage to the content page? Now: homepage/content-page Proposed: homepage/category/content-page (category is not indexed)
Technical SEO | | hoch0 -
What pages of my site does Google rank as the most important?
If I type site:youtube.com into Google, are the results listed by what Google considers to be the most important pages of the site? If I change my sitemap should this order change? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Seaward-Group0