Home Page Deindexed overnight?
-
Hi,
Hope you guys can help. I run an e-commerce site https://alloywheels.com Last night our home page (and a few other pages, but not all) were de-indexed by Google. The site has been ranking (UK) for years in P1 for the "alloy wheels" keyword and on the whole been running very successfully. However recently I have noticed from fluctuation on the "alloy wheels" keyword, dropping to P3 then P5 then back to P3, but this morning I noticed we were not even ranking on the first page.
When I check inside Search Console there are no messages or warnings but the "/" page was de-indexed. There were a few other key pages that were also de-indexed. I have request reindexing and they have come back, P7 for the home page for "alloy wheels"
The only thing I have changed was I realised yesterday there was no robots.txt on the site and was being recommended by web.dev to add one, so I did. It was just an allow all:
User-agent: *
DisallowSitemap: https://alloywheels.com/sitemap.xml
I ran tests on the robots.txt before it was uploaded and it all came green. I have removed the robots.txt for now.
Has anybody seen anything like this before? With the recent ranking fluctuation I am not sure whether it is to do with that, the robots.txt or something different altogether?
Thanks in advance,
James
-
Lots of people facing this same problem. It happening because Google has some technical issues.
-
The issue is now being reported as fixed, with a response from Google’s John Mueller saying it was a technical issue their end. https://searchengineland.com/google-de-indexing-issue-now-fixed-result-of-technical-issues-315058
-
Myself and a friend (who is a competitor) both had the same problem. Doing a URL Inspection in Google Search Console - specifically the Test Live URL thing - fixed it immediately.
-
Thanks for taking the time to reply. Certainly seems the same as others are reporting, so makes me feel a little better!
-
Someone else in the forum has posted a very similar question to you! My response there:
"It looks like you're not the only one: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dropping-pages-out-of-the-search-index-27369.html
No response from Google yet."
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
-
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical.
Over 40+ pages have been removed from the indexed and this page has been selected as the google preferred canonical. https://studyplaces.com/about-us/ The pages affected by this include: https://studyplaces.com/50-best-college-party-songs-of-all-time-and-why-we-love-them/ https://studyplaces.com/15-best-minors-for-business-majors/ As you can see the content on these pages is totally unrelated to the content on the about-us page. Any ideas why this is happening and how to resolve.
Technical SEO | | pnoddy0 -
An informational product page AND a shop page (for same brand)
Hi all, This is my first foray into e-commerce SEO. I'm working with a new client who sells upscale eBikes online. Since his products are expensive, he wants to have informational pages about the brands he sells eg. www.example.com/brand. However these brands are also category pages for his online shop eg. www.example.com/shop/brand I'm worried about keyword cannibalization and adding an extra step/click to get to the shop (right now the navigational menu takes you to the information page and from there you have to click to get to the shop) I'm pretty sure it would make more sense to have ONE killer shopping page that includes all the brand information but I want to be 100% sure before I advise him to take this big step. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | MouthyPR1 -
3,511 Pages Indexed and 3,331 Pages Blocked by Robots
Morning, So I checked our site's index status on WMT, and I'm being told that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and the robots are blocking 3,331. This seems slightly odd as we're only disallowing 24 pages on the robots.txt file. In light of this, I have the following queries: Do these figures mean that Google is indexing 3,511 pages and blocking 3,331 other pages? Or does it mean that it's blocking 3,331 pages of the 3,511 indexed? As there are only 24 URLs being disallowed on robots.text, why are 3,331 pages being blocked? Will these be variations of the URLs we've submitted? Currently, we don't have a sitemap. I know, I know, it's pretty unforgivable but the old one didn't really work and the developers are working on the new one. Once submitted, will this help? I think I know the answer to this, but is there any way to ascertain which pages are being blocked? Thanks in advance! Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Need help with home page on site
Hello! Thanks for reading in advance! I've got a relatively old site (12 year old domain) that has experienced a drop in rankings specifically for our home page. Some of the key terms that I'd assume we would rank well for are: "expedite us passport" According to SEOMOZ, our on page optimization receives a C for the termr. also, the root domain and page have decent links, etc. However; looking at Google (logged out and in incognito mode in chrome), a page on our site http://www.passportsandvisas.com/passport/index.asp ranks well and our HOME page isn't listed in the top 50 or 100. THis is the case for a lot of keywords we used to rank well for. I would have thought our home page would have at least outranked an internal page. Any thoughts would be very, very helpful!
Technical SEO | | santiago230 -
Duplicate Content - Home Page even wth Mod Rewrite 301
Hi, It looks like Seomoz (and Screaming Frog) is showing my home page as duplicate content. http://www.mydomain.com Page Authority 61 Linking root Domain 321 http://www.mydomain.com/ Page Authority 61 Linking root Domain 321 [Screaming Frog shows duplicate as]
Technical SEO | | Force7
www.mydomain.com/
www.mydomain.com/index.html} Years ago I hired someone to write the code for a rewrite for non www to be 301 redirected to www version. I was surprised at finding out that I still have a problem. Here is the code on my htaccess page. <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mydomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]</ifmodule> Was this code not properly written ? One more question, we were hit hard by Panda and Penguin, would something like this be that much of a factor. Thanks in advance, Force70 -
Is it better to delete web pages that I don't want anymore or should I 301 redirect all of the pages I delete to the homepage or another live page?
Is it better for SEO to delete web pages that I don't want anymore or should I 301 redirect all of the pages I delete to the homepage or another live page?
Technical SEO | | CustomOnlineMarketing0 -
What Are The Page Linking Options?
Okay, so I'm working with a site that has pretty good domain authority, but the interior pages are not well linked or optimized. So, it ranks for some terms, but everything goes to the home page. So, I'd like to increase the authority of the interior pages. The client is not wild about spreading targeted juice via something like a footer. They also don't like a "Popular Searches" style link list. The objection is that it's not attractive. They currently use cute euphemisms as the linking text, so like "cool stuff" instead of "sheepskin seat covers." In that made up example, they'd like to rank for the latter, but insist on using the former. What about a slide show with alt text/links? Would that increase the authority of those pages in a term-targeted kinda way? Are there other options? Does it matter how prominent those links are, like footers not as good as something higher up the page? They currently use a pull-down kind of thing that still results in some pages having no authority. Do bots use that equally well? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | 945010 -
Single Home Page Version
Hello, I'd like to redirect all versions of my homepage to www.inthelighturns.com so I force Google to see only one page. Is the below rewrites all I need? rewritecond %{http_host} ^inthelighturns.com [nc]rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.inthelighturns.com/$1 [r=301,nc] RewriteRule ^index.(htm|html) http://www.inthelighturns.com/ [R=301,L]RewriteRule ^(.*)/index.(htm|html) http://www.inthelighturns.com/$1/ [R=301,L] Thanks Tyler
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0