Google only indexing the top 2/3 of my page?
-
HI,
I have a page that is about 5000 lines of code total. I was having difficulty figuring out why the addition of a lot of targeted, quality content to the bottom of the pages was not helping with rankings. Then, when fetching as Google, I noticed that only about 3300 lines were getting indexed for some reason.
So naturally, that content wasn't going to have any effect if Google in not seeing it. Has anyone seen this before? Thoughts on what may be happening? I'm not seeing any errors begin thrown by the page....and I'm not aware of a limit of lines of code Google will crawl. Pages load under 5 seconds so loading speed shouldn't be the issue.
Thanks, Kevin
-
Do we know if a quick copy paste from the lower 1/3 of the page into Google returned the page (and copied text) in question? Or, have you ever seen a case where the top portion is findable in the SERPs through a quick copy/paste of a portion of text, but text from the bottom doesn't return anything?
I've seen this happen, and don't really have a good answer for it. Seems like it could be along the same lines? I know Google can't index a portion of the page, but strange how when you copy a sentence from the top of a page with tons of lines of code, you can find it in the SERPs, but doing the same from the bottom yielded nothing.
-
The OP was saying that Fetch/Render was only showing 2/3 of his page, he did confuse that with indexing, which is also why I'm trying to clarify this difference. Indexing partial content is not a thing, seeing partial content in Fetch/Render is a thing.
There is no content (as in on-page content) in SERPs, only a title tag, URL, and meta description. It's literally impossible for Google to index a portion of a page, because that content is what's on the URL. You click that link, and it's out of their control.
-
James,
Search Console's Fetch and Render tool is much different than indexing, it's simply a representation of how Google sees your page. Long-form content is not required for good rankings when the intent of the searcher justifies, I've seen plenty of top ranked pages with shorter content, especially on ecommerce sites.
-
Hi Kevin,
I noticed your site is very image-heavy (if we're talking about your agency's site). It's common to see this in the Fetch and Render tool, especially on pages with a lot of images. Anytime I run a F&R on an ecommerce site's product listing page, the images stop loading at a certain point. I wouldn't worry too much about it, it doesn't mean they're not indexing it (they can't index a portion of a URL), it just means they're not using resources to show you everything they see.
There's a problem with your strategy that you highlighted when you said "quality content to the bottom of the pages was not helping with rankings". If you're putting content in the bottom of pages simply for ranking purposes, your SEO strategy needs a second look. Content needs to be written for people, and in order for it to be useful to people, you need to not bury it in the bottom of a page. Google weighs content differently based on its location, if you put something at the bottom of the page, on a hidden tab, or behind an accordion, it's not going to be nearly as helpful for ranking boosts.
Hope that helps answer your question.
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
-
Domain Authority... http://www.domain.com/ vs. http://domain.com vs. http://domain.com/
Hey Guys, Looking at Page Authority for my Site and ranking them in Decending Order, I see these 3 http://www.domain.com/ | Authority 62 http://domain.com | Authority 52 http://domain.com/ | Authority 52 Since the first one listed has the highest Authority, should I be using a 301 redirects on the lower ranking variations (which I understand how works) or should I be using rel="canonical" (which I don't really understand how it works) Also, if this is a problem that I should address, should we see a significant boost if fixed? Thanks ahead of time for anyone who can help a lost sailor who doesn't know how to sail and probably shouldn't have left shore in the first place. Cheers ZP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mr_Snack0 -
Webmaster Tools Not Indexing New Pages
Hi there Mozzers, Running into a small issue. After a homepage redesign (from a list of blog posts to a product page), it seems that blog posts are buried on the http://OrangeOctop.us/ site. The latest write-up on "how to beat real madrid in FIFA 15", http://orangeoctop.us/against-real-madrid-fifa-15/ , has yet to be indexed. It would normally take about a day naturally for pages to be indexed or instantly with a manual submission. I have gone into webmaster tools and manually submitted the page for crawls multiple times on multiple devices. Still not showing up in the search results. Can anybody advise?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | orangeoctop.us0 -
How long does google take to show the results in SERP once the pages are indexed ?
Hi...I am a newbie & trying to optimize the website www.peprismine.com. I have 3 questions - A little background about this : Initially, close to 150 pages were indexed by google. However, we decided to remove close to 100 URLs (as they were quite similar). After the changes, we submitted the NEW sitemap (with close to 50 pages) & google has indexed those URLs in sitemap. 1. My pages were indexed by google few days back. How long does google take to display the URL in SERP once the pages get indexed ? 2. Does google give more preference to websites with more number of pages than those with lesser number of pages to display results in SERP (I have just 50 pages). Does the NUMBER of pages really matter ? 3. Does removal / change of URLs have any negative effect on ranking ? (Many of these URLs were not shown on the 1st page) An answer from SEO experts will be highly appreciated. Thnx !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PepMozBot0 -
Site Indexed by Google but not Bing or Yahoo
Hi, I have a site that is indexed (and ranking very well) in Google, but when I do a "site:www.domain.com" search in Bing and Yahoo it is not showing up. The team that purchased the domain a while back has no idea if it was indexed by Bing or Yahoo at the time of purchase. Just wondering if there is anything that might be preventing it from being indexed? Also, Im going to submit an index request, are there any other things I can do to get it picked up?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbfrench0 -
404 with a Javascript Redirect to the index page...
I have a client that is wanting me to issue a 404 on her links that are no longer valid to a custom 404, pause for 10 seconds, then rediirect to the root page (or whatever other redirect logic she wants)...to me it seems trying to game googlebot this way is a "bad idea" Can anyone confirm/deny or offer up a better suggestion?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JusinDuff0 -
Sudden Change In Indexed Pages
Every week I check the number of pages indexed by google using the "site:" function. I have set up a permanent redirect from all the non-www pages to www pages. When I used to run the function for the: non-www pages (i.e site:mysite.com), would have 12K results www pages (i.e site:www.mysite.com) would have about 36K The past few days, this has reversed! I get 12K for www pages, and 36K for non-www pages. Things I have changed: I have added canonical URL links in the header, all have www in the URL. My questions: Is this cause for concern? Can anyone explain this to me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Not ranking as well in Yahoo/Bing as in Google. Why?
For my top 132 keywords, my target ranks an average of 7 positions lower in Bing and an average of 9 positions lower in Yahoo. Does anyone have some good resources to read, or any tips on why we would rank so much poorer in Bing/Yahoo than in google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adriandg0 -
Removing pages from index
Hello, I run an e-commerce website. I just realized that Google has "pagination" pages in the index which should not be there. In fact, I have no idea how they got there. For example, www.mydomain.com/category-name.asp?page=3434532
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexGop
There are hundreds of these pages in the index. There are no links to these pages on the website, so I am assuming someone is trying to ruin my rankings by linking to the pages that do not exist. The page content displays category information with no products. I realize that its a flaw in design, and I am working on fixing it (301 none existent pages). Meanwhile, I am not sure if I should request removal of these pages. If so, what is the best way to request bulk removal. Also, should I 301, 404 or 410 these pages? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Alex0