Google crawling but not indexing for no apparent reason
-
Client's site went secure about two months ago and chose root domain as rel canonical (so site redirects to https://rootdomain.com (no "www"). Client is seeing the site recognized and indexed by Google about every 3-5 days and then not indexed until they request a "Fetch". They've been going through this annoying process for about 3 weeks now.
Not sure if it's a server issue or a domain issue. They've done work to enhance .htaccess (i.e., the redirects) and robots.txt. If you've encountered this issue and have a recommendation or have a tech site or person resource to recommend, please let me know.
Google search engine results are respectable. One option would be to do nothing but then would SERPs start to fall without requesting a new Fetch?
Thanks in advance,
Alan
-
Alan, I'm sure this goes without saying but please make sure there are 301 redirects from the http version to the HTTPS version otherwise your gonna have one hell of an organic traffic decline.
-
Josh, Bryan and Nick:
Thanks for your excellent and timely responses. The problem appears to have been solved. There were redirects of the http versions of the site. These were removed and simply the redirect from https://www ... to https://... remains. Googlebot is now indexing pages as reported in Search Console. So, I'm keeping tabs but looks like problem is corrected. I used varvy.com/tools/redirects/ to verify. Thanks again!
-
I've seen people switch to secure HTTPS and forget to change their canonical values from http to HTTPS. Something to double check.
-
I suggest creating accounts in Google Search Console for BOTH www.websitename.com and websitename.com (without www.). Then, you'll be able to use these to tell Google which version you prefer. This isn't always necessary considering all you say you've done, but it looks like you've simply been unlucky with this. Using GSC for domain preference marking should help, if not solve the problem altogether.
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 I "no-index" two exact pages on Google results?
Hello everyone, I recently started a new wordpress website and created a static homepage. I noticed that on Google search results, there are two different URLs landing on same content page. I've attached an image to explain what I saw. Should I "no-index" the page url? Google url.JPG In this picture, the first result is the homepage and I try to rank for that page. The last result is landing on same content with different URL. So, should I no-index last result as shown in image?
Technical SEO | | amanda59640 -
No Index PDFs
Our products have about 4 PDFs a piece, which really inflates our indexed pages. I was wondering if I could add REL=No Index to the PDF's URL? All of the files are on a file server, so they are embedded with links on our product pages. I know I could add a No Follow attribute, but I was wondering if any one knew if the No Index would work the same or if that is even possible. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MonicaOConnor0 -
Removing a staging area/dev area thats been indexed via GWT (since wasnt hidden) from the index
Hi, If you set up a brand new GWT account for a subdomain, where the dev area is located (separate from the main GWT account for the main live site) and remove all pages via the remove tool (by leaving the page field blank) will this definately not risk hurting/removing the main site (since the new subdomain specific gwt account doesn't apply to the main site in any way) ?? I have a new client who's dev area has been indexed, dev team has now prevented crawling of this subdomain but the 'the stable door was shut after the horse had already bolted' and the subdomains pages are on G's index so we need to remove the entire subdomain development area asap. So we are going to do this via the remove tool in a subdomain specific new gwt account, but I just want to triple check this wont accidentally get main site removed too ?? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Why has Google stopped indexing my content?
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
Technical SEO | | indieshuffle0 -
De-indexed from Google
Hi Search Experts! We are just launching a new site for a client with a completely new URL. The client can not provide any access details for their existing site. Any ideas how can we get the existing site de-indexed from Google? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | rikmon0 -
Google indexing directory folder listing page
Google somehow managed to find several of our images index folders and decided to include them into their index. Example: websitesite.com/category/images/ is what you'll see when doing a site:website.com search. So, I have two-part question: 1) Does this hurt our site's ability to rank in any way?
Technical SEO | | invision
Because all Google sees is just a directory listing page with a bunch of links to images in the folder. 2) If there could be any negative effect, what is the best way to get these folders out of Google's index?
I could block via robots.txt, but I'm afraid it will also block all the images in that folder from being indexed in Google image search. I could also turn off directory listing in cpanel / htaccess, but then that gives is a 403 forbidden. Will this hurt the site in anyway and would it prevent Google from indexing the images in the directory? Thanks,
Tony0 -
How long does it take for Google to de-index urls?
Added the noindex meta tag to some pages on my site and I am wondering if anyone has any idea how long it will take to deindex the urls?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Google News not indexing .index.html pages
Hi all, we've been asked by a blog to help them better indexing and ranking on Google News (with the site being already included in Google News with poor results) The blog had a chronicle URL duplication problem with each post existing with 3 different URLs: #1) www.domain.com/post.html (currently in noindex for editorial choices as showing all the comments) #2) www.domain.com/post/index.html (currently indexed showing only top comments) #3) www.domain.com/post/ (very same as #2) We've chosen URL #2 (/index.html) as canonical URL, and included a rel=canonical tag on URL #3 (/) linking to URL #2.
Technical SEO | | H-FARM
Also we've submitted yesterday a Google News sitemap including consistently the list of URLs #2 from the last 48h . The sitemap has been properly "digested" by Google and shows that all URLs have been sent and indexed. However if we use the site:domain.com command on Google News we see something completely different: Google News has indexed actually only some news and more specifically only the URLs #3 type (ending with the trailing slash instead of /index.html). Why ? What's wrong ? a) Does Google News bot have problems indexing URLs ending with .index.html ? While figuring out what's wrong we've found out that http://news.google.it/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=inurl%3Aindex.html gives no results...it seems that Google News index overall does not include any URLs ending with /index.html b) Does Google News bot recognise rel=canonical tag ? c) Is it just a matter of time and then Google News will pick up the right URLs (/index.html) and/or shall we communicate Google News team any changes ? d) Any suggestions ? OR Shall we do the other way around. meaning make URL #3 the canonical one ? While Google News is showing these problems, Google Web search has actually well received the changes, so we don't know what to do. Thanks for your help, Matteo0