Page missing from Google index
-
Hi all,
One of our most important pages seems to be missing from the Google index.
A number of our collections pages (e.g., http://perfectlinens.com/collections/size-king) are thin, so we've included a canonical reference in all of them to the main collection page (http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all).
However, I don't see the main collection page in any Google search result. When I search using "info:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all", the page displayed is our homepage. Why is this happening?
The main collection page has a rel=canonical reference to itself (auto-generated by Shopify so I can't control that).
Thanks!
-
In general, for link value to transfer either through 301s or canonicals, the content of the page needs to be nearly identical. See Cyrus' post for more. And canonicals are not always followed by Google, they are just a "hint", so it's unlikely you'll pass much value that way.
-
Dan, thanks for that response! I wasn't aware that our homepage had a canonical reference to our category page. On closer examination, I found that our category page in return had a canonical reference to our homepage. Messed up!
I've fixed that, and now resubmitted that page to Google using Search Console. Hopefully that will fix our issues.
Just one last question - why do you prefer noindex over canonical? If I had some backlinks to a thin category page (e.g., /collections/twin), wouldn't it be better to 'transfer' those benefits to our main category page (/collections/all) using canonical references?
Thanks again
-
Hello
Ahh ok, missed that detail.
I created a quick video for you ---> http://screencast.com/t/IKkEikyr
I think this is a bit of a complicated situation which will be tough to diagnose and fix in a Q&A thread. I would suggest catalog the different settings of your site in a spreadsheet like I show in the video.
Essentially, the canonical settings are just "suggestions" for Google and not "directives" so they will ignore them if they think they have been set in error.
I would start by clearly defining the end result you want (what pages should be crawled, and what should be indexed) and work backwards from there to apply the right settings.
I would probably try to use noindex, robots.txt etc before resorting to a canonical.
-
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your response. The page that you see when you type in our category page is in fact, our home page. e.g., when I do info:page A, or cache: page A, the result is for page B. Why is this happening if page A does not have a canonical reference or a redirect of any kind to B?
Thanks.
-
FYI - to check if a page is indexed try typing site:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all into the Google search bar, or cache:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all into your browser.
-
Hi There!
That page is in fact indexed and cached for me! Can you check again? And let me know?
-Dan
-
Patrick, thank you for your response.
1. The reason we're using canonical references on those pages is because they are almost identical copies of each other. In the future, we'll create some content on them and they can then stand by themselves.
2. But the original question remains - why is the main page (http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all) missing from the Google index? It's been on the site for a long time, it's one of our most important pages, it's in our sitemap, and robots.txt is not blocking it.
Thank you for your other tips though - I appreciate them, and will put them on our to-do list.
-
Hi there
First, those pages (size-king) should be canonicalized to their own pages, not canonicaling back to the "all" pages. This could be a potentially bad customer experience and you could be missing out on a LOT of organic traffic if some of those product pages are targeting high volume, low competition keywords / variations.
I would work on expanding the content on those product pages and implementing Schema. You have a lot of opportunities to be implementing these tags which will also help your search visibility.
Lastly, depending on when you implemented these canonical tags and your sitemap, Google and other search engines could still be indexing them. When did you upload your sitemap / implement canonical tags? Also, have you submitted these sitemaps to Google and Bing? I recommend you do so if you didn't!
And always make sure your robots.txt and meta tags aren't inadvertently blocking key pages from search! This is an often overlooked area in SEO!
But more than anything - work on that content for your product, canonical tag them to their pages, and add schema. It will make a world a difference!
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Patrick
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 keeps marking different pages as duplicates
My website has many pages like this: mywebsite/company1/valuation mywebsite/company2/valuation mywebsite/company3/valuation mywebsite/company4/valuation ... These pages describe the valuation of each company. These pages were never identical but initially, I included a few generic paragraphs like what is valuation, what is a valuation model, etc... in all the pages so some parts of these pages' content were identical. Google marked many of these pages as duplicated (in Google Search Console) so I modified the content of these pages: I removed those generic paragraphs and added other information that is unique to each company. As a result, these pages are extremely different from each other now and have little similarities. Although it has been more than 1 month since I made the modification, Google still marks the majority of these pages as duplicates, even though Google has already crawled their new modified version. I wonder whether there is anything else I can do in this situation? Thanks
Technical SEO | | TuanDo96270 -
Anything new if determining how many of a sites pages are in Google's supplemental index vs the main index?
Since site:mysite.com *** -sljktf stopped working to find pages in the supplemental index several years ago has anyone found another way to identify content that has been regulated to the supplemental index?
Technical SEO | | SEMPassion0 -
Which factors are effect on Google index?
Mywebsite have 455 URL submitedbut only 77 URLs are indexed. How can i improve more indexed URL?
Technical SEO | | magician0 -
Google is indexing my directories
I'm sure this has been asked before, but I was looking at all of Google's results for my site and I found dozens of results for directories such as: Index of /scouting/blog/wp-includes/js/swfupload/plugins Obviously I don't want those indexed. How do I prevent Google from indexing those? Also, it only seems to be doing it with Wordpress, not any of the directories on my main site. (We have a wordpress blog, which is only a portion of the site)
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept0 -
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 -
Descriptions missing from rankings associated with Google Place pages.
Can anyone help me figure out why my rankings that are associated with Google Place pages are missing descriptions? I have a number one result for the top searched keyword in my category but it just doesn't look the same without a description and I'm sure it's affecting CTR too.
Technical SEO | | glideagency0 -
Pages not indexed by Google
We recently deleted all the nofollow values on our website. (2 weeks ago) The number of pages indexed by google is the same as before? Do you have explanations for this? website : www.probikeshop.fr
Technical SEO | | Probikeshop0 -
Rel canonical or 301 the Index Page?
Still a bit confused on best practice for /index.php showing up as duplicate for www.mysite.com. What do I need to do and How?
Technical SEO | | bozzie3110