Blog page won't get indexed
-
Hi Guys,
I'm currently asked to work on a website. I noticed that the blog posts won't get indexed in Google. www.domain.com/blog does get indexed but the blogposts itself won't. They have been online for over 2 months now.
I found this in the robots.txt file:
Allow: / Disallow: /kitchenhandle/ Disallow: /blog/comments/ Disallow: /blog/author/ Disallow: /blog/homepage/feed/
I'm guessing that the last line causes this issue. Does anyone have an idea if this is the case and why they would include this in the robots.txt?
Cheers!
-
Thanks alot!
-
Hi Dirk,
Good observation, I missed the canonical part somehow. So, google is indexing the canonical URLs here which doesn't have /blog/ in it and that's the problem. Have a look at the indexed page for this particular instance here. Non /blog/ instance is indexed, which will take you to its /blog/ version with wrong canonical URL.
Solution: Either remove the canonical URLs on these pages to point them to the current page itself. And yeah! As rightly mentioned by Dirk, do a proper /blog/ page linking from the blog page and other pages from where you're linking these articles.
-
This is definitely the issue. Fix that canonical and they'll be indexed.
-
To update - even worse: on the blog itself you are linking to the canonical version - not to the /blog/ version. So it would be impossible for Google to index /blog/ type of content.
If you do woontrends 2016 site:www.keukensduitsland.nl you will notice that the canonical version is properly indexed (even with the strange js redirect.
Dirk
-
It's not related to the robots.txt - you can easily check that in Webmastertools (Crawl > Robots.txt tester)
First issue is the location of the link - if you put a small link to the blog hidden in the left corner at the bottom of the page Google is not going to attribute a lot of importance to this link.
Most important issue on your blog articles is the canonical - example:
http://www.keukensduitsland.nl/blog/woontrends-2016/ has as canonical url: http://www.keukensduitsland.nl/woontrends-2016/ - however this page will redirect you with javascript to the blog article.
Make the canonical self referencing and do a proper redirect on the other pages (301 rather than js redirect)
Dirk
-
Hi Happy SEO,
Well, the robots.txt looks find here. Could you try to fetch any of the blog page/post as google in the search console and share the screenshot here?
Also, to cross check the robots.txt (which looks fine though), you have robots.txt tester in search console where you can put any blog page/post to check if bots can crawl it. Please share a screenshot of that as well.
On a separate note, the sitemap.xml link mentioned in the robots.txt (http://www.keukensduitsland.nl/sitemap.xml) is broken. Fix that as well.
-
Hi Nitin,
The URL is www.keukensduitsland.nl (/blog). The link to the blog page is in the bottom left corner called "Keukennieuws".
-
Hi Happy SEO,
Could you please share the blog URL here? Sounds like an interesting issue and would love to give a try to help you with this
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
-
Should search pages be indexed?
Hey guys, I've always believed that search pages should be no-indexed but now I'm wondering if there is an argument to index them? Appreciate any thoughts!
Technical SEO | | RebekahVP0 -
If I'm using a compressed sitemap (sitemap.xml.gz) that's the URL that gets submitted to webmaster tools, correct?
I just want to verify that if a compressed sitemap file is being used, then the URL that gets submitted to Google, Bing, etc and the URL that's used in the robots.txt indicates that it's a compressed file. For example, "sitemap.xml.gz" -- thanks!
Technical SEO | | jgresalfi0 -
Sitemap url's not being indexed
There is an issue on one of our sites regarding many of the sitemap url's not being indexed. (at least 70% is not being indexed) The url's in the sitemap are normal url's without any strange characters attached to them, but after looking into it, it seems a lot of the url's get a #. + a number sequence attached to them once you actually go to that url. We are not sure if the "addthis" bookmark could cause this, or if it's another script doing it. For example Url in the sitemap: http://example.com/example-category/0246 Url once you actually go to that link: http://example.com/example-category/0246#.VR5a Just for further information, the XML file does not have any style information associated with it and is in it's most basic form. Has anyone had similar issues with their sitemap not being indexed properly ?...Could this be the cause of many of these url's not being indexed ? Thanks all for your help.
Technical SEO | | GreenStone0 -
Duplicate Titles Aren't Actually Duplicate
I am seeing duplicate title errors, but when I go to fix the problem, the titles are not actually identical. Any advice? Becky
Technical SEO | | Becky_Converge0 -
Has Google stopped rendering author snippets on SERP pages if the author's G+ page is not actively updated?
Working with a site that has multiple authors and author microformat enabled. The image is rendering for some authors on SERP page and not for others. Difference seems to be having an updated G+ page and not having a constantly updating G+ page. any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | irvingw0 -
Why aren't review score metadata appearing on the SERP for this page?
The page in question is: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/sony-rx100/sony-rx100A.HTM Review metadata checks out in google's rich metadata tester, but doesn't get displayed on the SERP for "Sony RX100" (see second page).
Technical SEO | | ir-seo-account0 -
2 links on home page to each category page ..... is page rank being watered down?
I am working on a site that has a home page containing 2 links to each category page. One of the links is a text link and one link is an image link. I think I'm right in thinking that Google will only pay attention to the anchor text/alt text of the first link that it spiders with the anchor text/alt text of the second being ignored. This is not my question however. My question is about the page rank that is passed to each category page..... Because of the double links on the home page, my reckoning is that PR is being divided up twice as many times as necessary. Am I also right in thinking that if Google ignore the 2nd identical link on a page only one lot of this divided up PR will be passed to each category page rather than 2 lots ..... hence horribly watering down the 'link juice' that is being passed to each category page?? Please help me win this argument with a developer and improve the ranking potential of the category pages on the site 🙂
Technical SEO | | QubaSEO0 -
Can someone break down 'page level link metrics' for me?
Sorry for the, again, basic question - can someone define page level link metrics for me?
Technical SEO | | Benj250