Why is the Dev site indexing and not my actual Domain
-
hi guys I had 2 word press sites built but since they went live a couple of things aren't working.
1.when I do a keyword search one of the sites comes back with the actual URL and when I do another keyword search for the same site the DEV site comes back indexed and not the actual URL.
2. The other site originally started indexing with the DEV site and not the URL and the developer tried to fix it and now it doesn't index at all. Its been long enough time for it to index.
Both URL's are live when put into a browser.
Any advice would be great
Thanks
Jamie
-
Thanks David.
-
Thanks David PMing you now.
-
Looks like your dev didn't block the dev site while it was being created. That sucks.
This is easy to fix. Make sure you have an updated sitemap file with recent change dates, and all the final URLs added. Also, go through Google's webmaster tools and fetch each new URL that has been added. If you still have a dev directory or folder on the server, block this with robots.txt.
Sitemap example:
<url><loc>https://DOMAIN.com/subpage/</loc>
<lastmod>2016-09-26T04:14:14Z</lastmod></url>
<priority>1.0</priority> (or whatever priority you want to set for the URLs)
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
-
Hi Jamie,
It sounds like the dev site has been removed from index, which is good, but I would check two things straight away on the proper site:
- Make sure your site doesn't have a meta robots "noindex" tags on each page
- Make sure your site isn't blocking crawlers (including search engines) in robots.txt
If this is a WordPress site, check Settings > Reading and make sure that the box that says 'Discourage search engines from indexing this site' is unchecked.
If you aren't sure how to do any of this, send me a PM with the domain names and I'd be happy to take a quick look.
Cheers,
David
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
-
Search Console Indexed Page Count vs Site:Search Operator page count
We launched a new site and Google Search Console is showing 39 pages have been indexed. When I perform a Site:myurl.com search I see over 100 pages that appear to be indexed. Which is correct and why is there a discrepancy? Also, Search Console Page Index count started at 39 pages on 5/21 and has not increased even though we have hundreds of pages to index. But I do see more results each week from Site:psglearning.com My site is https://wwww.psglearning.com
Technical SEO | | pdowling0 -
Redirecting old html site to new wordpress site
Hi I'm currently updating an old (8 years old) html site to wordpress and about a month ago I redirected some url's to the new site (which is in a directory) like this... Redirect 301 /article1.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article1/
Technical SEO | | briandee
Redirect 301 /article2.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article2/
Redirect 301 /article3.htm http://mysite.net/wordpress/article3/ Google has indexed these new url's and they are showing in search results. I'm almost finished the new version of site and it is currently in a directory /wordpress I intend to move all the files from the directory to the root so new url when this is done will be http://mysite.net/article1/ etc My question is - what to I do about the redirects which are in place - do I delete them and replace with something like this? Redirect 301 /wordpress/article1/ http://mysite.net/article1/
Redirect 301 /wordpress/article2/ http://mysite.net/article2/
Redirect 301 /wordpress/article3/ http://mysite.net/article3/ Appreciate any help with this0 -
Migrating domains from a domain that will have new content.
We have a new url. The old url is being taken over by someone else. Is it possible to still have a successful redirect/migration strategy if we are redirect from our old domain, which is now being used by someone else. I see a big mess, but I'm being told we can redirect all the links to our old content (which is now used by someone else) to our new url. Thoughts? craziness? insanity? Or I'm just not getting it:)
Technical SEO | | CC_Dallas0 -
Site removed from Google Index
Hi mozers, Two months ago we published http://aquacion.com We registered it in the Google Webmaster tools and after a few day the website was in the index no problem. But now the webmaster tools tell us the URLs were manually removed. I've look everywhere in the webmaster tools in search for more clues but haven't found anything that would help me. I sent the acces to the client, who might have been stupid enough to remove his own site from the Google index, but now, even though I delete and add the sitemap again, the website won't show in Google SERPs. What's weird is that Google Webmaster Tools tells us all the page are indexed. I'm totally clueless here... Ps. : Added screenshots from Google Webmaster Tools. Update Turns out it was my mistake after all. When my client developped his website a few months ago, he published it, and I removed the website from the Google Index. When the website was finished I submited the sitemap, thinking it would void the removal request, but it don't. How to solve In webmaster tools, in the [Google Index => Remove URLs] page, you can reinclude pages there. tGib0
Technical SEO | | RichardPicard0 -
301 Multiple Sites to Main Site
Over the past couple years I had 3 sites that sold basically the same products and content. I later realized this had no value to my customers or Google so I 301 redirected Site 2 and Site 3 to my main site (Site 1). Of course this pushed a lot of page rank over to Site 1 and the site has been ranking great. About a week ago I moved my main site to a new eCommerce platform which required me to 301 redirect all the url's to the new platform url's which I did for all the main site links (Site 1). During this time I decided it was probably better off if I DID NOT 301 redirect all the links from the other 2 sites as well. I just didn't see the need as I figured Google realized at this point those sites were gone and I started fearing Google would get me for Page Rank munipulation for 301 redirecting 2 whole sites to my main site. Now I am getting over 1,000 404 crawl errors in GWT as Google can no longer find the URL's for Site 2 and Site 3. Plus my rankings have dropped substantially over the past week, part of which I know is from switching platforms. Question, did I make a mistake not 301 redirecting the url's from the old sites (Site 2 and Site 3) to my new ecommerce url's at Site 1?
Technical SEO | | SLINC0 -
Find all 404 links in my site that are indexed
Hi All, Find all 404 links in my site that are indexed. We deleted a lot of URl's from site but now i dont have the track of all we deleted. Any site/Tool can scan the index and give me the exact URL's so I can use https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals?hl=en&rlf=all Regards Martin
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
301 for old domain to new domain - Joomla plugin or cpanel?
A client changed domains and both are being indexed. There are thousands of content pages. I can install a 301 redirect Joomla plugin and configure it so that each page redirects to the new domain. I have a feeling I will need to manual set every page. OR I can create a domain level redirect setting in cpanel using wildcards. I think this will automatically pass every old URL to the new URL. Which is the better approach? The cpanel option sounds like less work.
Technical SEO | | designquotes0 -
How much of an issue is it if a site is somehow connected to a site that was penalized by Google?
I am working with someone that is about to launch a new site, and one of the sites was affected by the Panda update. Does it matter if the two sites are connected? Share the same hosting provider and same Google Webmaster's account?
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0