Why is Google not indexing my site?
-
I'm a bit confused as to why my site just isn't indexing on Google. Even if I type in my brand name, my social channels rank and there's no evidence of my website. I've followed all of the advice I've read and gone into webmaster tools and got the Wordpress yoast plug-in but nothing seems to be making a difference!One thing I've noticed, in Google Webmaster Tools it says "Couldn’t communicate with the DNS server." in site errors. I've called GoDaddy and they said that everything is fine. A bit frustrating. Trying to work out what my next steps should be but feeling a bit lost to be honest! Any help GREATLY appreciated!
-
These two URL's
http://simplycrowngreenbowls.wordpress.com/
http://simplycrowngreenbowls.com/
Should 301 Redirect to
-
Got ya. Sorry for being slow, but what should I make sure is pointed there?
-
Your best bet would be to login to the WP account and have it redirect to your new site. This would be the quickest way to let Google know that the WP site is the old site, plus if you had any links to it the juice would flow to the new one instead of going away.
-
Preferred Landing Page.
-
Ah I see, thank you. I've deleted the wordpress.com site, I started it before the proper site and don't need it so hopefully simplycrowngreenbowls.co.uk will start to replace that?
-
Apparently Google thinks the http://simplycrowngreenbowls.wordpress.com/ site is more relevant. (I see that this is also your site.) Google cached the .wordpress site first, so it might just be holding on to that because there is no overwhelming reason not to.
You have a line in the content of that .wordpress page instructing people to go to simplycrowngreenbowls.co.uk, but you do not actually 301 redirect the page. As Shawn said, you should do that.
If you do a Bing or Yahoo search your site simplycrowngreenbowls.co.uk comes up first, and as I mentioned I can find your site with the site: operator in Google, so I do not think it is a case of your preferred site not being findable. (I also took a look with Screaming Frog and didn't see any glaring errors.)
-
How come I don't see my site if i type in "simply crown green bowls"?
-
I can see your site indexed in Google. When I do site:simplycrowngreenbowls.co.uk in a Google search bar, I see nine pages from your site come up.
-
Thanks Shawn. What do you mean by get everything to point to your PLP?
-
That shouldn't be an issue as long as you have the correct DNS in the settings.
Something I noticed, is this you as well? http://simplycrowngreenbowls.wordpress.com/
If it is, you might want to do a 301 redirect from that to your domain.
Are you parking the US version of the domain? I found http://simplycrowngreenbowls.com/ and it shows GoDaddy.com saying that the domain is parked for free courtesy of GoDaddy.
My guess, and I am by no imagination a server wizard, there is a disconnect with what you want to rank and what Google is finding. I would talk with 1and1 or GoDaddy to see if they can help you get everything to point to your PLP and go from there.
I am all over the place on this reply, but hopefully it helps get you in the right direction.
-
By the way, GoDaddy is the host and 1and1 is registrar. Could that be causing a problem? I spoke to them both today and both said they couldn't see any problems.
-
Hi Shawn,
I don't mind posting the URL, it's http://simplycrowngreenbowls.co.uk
It would be fantastic to know if you see any technical issues.
-
Without knowing the URL it's hard to troubleshoot if there are technical issues with the page/site.
If you don't want to post personal or business stuff here no worries.
Things to try:
-
Screaming Frog - have it crawl your URL to find any issues
-
Do a Google site search to see if they have any pages indexed
-
Use semRush for those URL's and see if any keywords rank
-
Is GoDaddy your host or just the registrar? If they are not your host, contact them. Make sure to provide the exact error from GWT to help troubleshoot
-
Check robots.txt to ensure that isn't blocking.
Those are the few things top of head I would try
-
-
OK, thanks.
Any idea where the problem lies then? The site is about two months old and competing for moderately low competition key words and is just not ranking, even if I type in the brand name!
-
That is correct, if there was an issue it would say partial or something else and then you could click into it to see what Google sees.
-
Hi Shawn,
Thanks for the response. It says completed with a green tick so I presume that's fine?
-
Try to fetch your site as Google in GWT to see what it says. If there are DNS errors, it should give you some indication of where the error is.
Google Support article to do some more research - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2598813
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 Indexed a version of my site w/ MX record subdomain
We're doing a site audit and found "internal" links to a page in search console that appear to be from a subdomain of our site based on our MX record. We use Google Mail internally. The links ultimately redirect to our correct preferred subdomain "www", but I am concerned as to why this is happening and if it can have any negative SEO implications. Example of one of the links: Links aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com/about/solar-power-blog/daniel-sullivan/renewable-energy-and-electric-cars-are-not-political-footballs I did a site operator search, site:aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com on google and it returns several results.
Technical SEO | | SS.Digital0 -
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean?
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean? We have added some text in the pages with keywords thats related the page
Technical SEO | | AlexisWithers0 -
Google how deal with licensed content when this placed on vendor & client's website too. Will Google penalize the client's site for this ?
One of my client bought licensed content from top vendor of Health Industry. This same content is on the vendor's website & my client's site also but on my site there is a link back to vendor is placed which clearly tells to anyone that this is a licensed content & we bought from this vendor. My client bought paid top quality content for best source of industry but at this same this is placed on vendor's website also. Will Google penalize my client's website for this ? Niche is HEALTH
Technical SEO | | sourabhrana1 -
Post Site Migration - thousands of indexed pages, 4 months after
Hi all, Believe me. I think I've already tried and googled for every possible question that I have. This one is very frustrating – I have the following old domain – fancydiamonds dot net. We built a new site – Leibish dot com and done everything by the book: Individual 301 redirects for all the pages. Change of address via the GWT. Trying to maintain and improve the old optimization and hierarchy. 4 months after the site migration – we still have to gain back more than 50% of our original organic traffic (17,000 vs. 35,500-50,000 The thing that strikes me the most that you can still find 2400 indexed pages on Google (they all have 301 redirects). And more than this – if you'll search for the old domain name on Google – fancydiamonds dot net you'll find the old domain! Something is not right here, but I have no explanation why these pages still exist. Any help will be highly appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | skifr0 -
If Google's index contains multiple URLs for my homepage, does that mean the canonical tag is not working?
I have a site which is using canonical tags on all pages, however not all duplicate versions of the homepage are 301'd due to a limitation in the hosting platform. So some site visitors get www.example.com/default.aspx while others just get www.example.com. I can see the correct canonical tag on the source code of both versions of this homepage, but when I search Google for the specific URL "www.example.com/default.aspx" I see that they've indexed that specific URL as well as the "clean" one. Is this a concern... shouldn't Google only show me the clean URL?
Technical SEO | | JMagary0 -
Google is indexing blocked content in robots.txt
Hi,Google is indexing some URLs that i don't want to be indexed and also is indexing the same URLs with https. This URLs are blocked in the file robots.txt.I've tried to block this URLs through Google WebmasterTools but Google doesn't let me do it because this URL are httpsThe file robots.txt is correct so, what can i do to avoid this content to be indexed?
Technical SEO | | elisainteractive0 -
Ensuring Assets (PDFs, PowerPoint Files, Word Docs, etc.) are Indexable on Site
Hi there - I'm working on an educational site in which users will be able to search our repository of PDF articles, PowerPoint files, and so on through an on-site search engine. What is the best way to ensure each of these documents/assets are indexable by Google since they technically don't reside on an HTML page....they are just pulled up if the user searches for them? The site itself is just a few pages, but the files, articles, and videos in the repository are in the hundreds. Should I just name and tag them properly and make sure they're all included in an XML site map? Anything else suggested? Thanks very much!
Technical SEO | | MedThinkCommunications0 -
Google has not indexed my site in over 4 weeks, what's the problem?
We recently put in permanent redirects to our new url, but Google seems to not want to index the new url. There was no problems with the old url and the new url is brand new so should have no 'black marks' against it. We have done everything we can think off in terms of submitting site maps, telling google our url has changed in webmaster tools, mentioning the new url on social sites etc...but still nothing. It has been over 4 weeks now since we set up the redirects to the url, any ideas why Google seems to be choosing not to index it? Thanks
Technical SEO | | cewe0