What Should We Do to Fix Crawled but Not Indexed Pages for Multi-location Service Pages?
-
Hey guys! I work as a content creator for Zavza Seal, a contractor out of New York, and we're targeting 36+ cities in the Brooklyn and Queens areas with several services for home improvement. We got about 340 pages into our multi-location strategy targeting our target cities with each service we offer, when we noticed that 200+ of our pages were "Crawled but not indexed" in Google Search Console.
Here's what I think we may have done wrong. Let me know what you think...
- We used the same page template for all pages. (we changed the content and sections, formatting, targeted keywords, and entire page strategy for areas with unique problems trying to keep the user experience as unique as possible to avoid duplicate content or looking like we didn't care about our visitors.)
- We used the same featured image for all pages. (I know this is bad and wouldn't have done it myself, but hey, I'm not the publisher.)
- We didn't use rel canonicals to tell search engines that these pages were special made for the areas.
- We didn't use alt tags until about halfway through.
- A lot of the urls don't use the target keyword exactly.
- The NAP info and Google Maps embed is in the footer, so we didn't use it on the pages.
- We didn't use any content about the history or the city or anything like that. (some pages we did use content about historic buildings, low water table, flood prone areas, etc if they were known for that)
We were thinking of redoing the pages, starting from scratch and building unique experiences around each city, with testimonials, case studies, and content about problems that are common for property owners in the area, but I think they may be able to be fixed with a rel canonical, the city specific content added, and unique featured images on each page. What do you think is causing the problem? What would be the easiest way to fix it?
I knew the pages had to be unique for each page, so I switched up the page strategy every 5-10 pages out of fear that duplicate content would start happening, because you can only say so much about for example, "basement crack repair".
Please let me know your thoughts. Here is one of the pages that are indexed as an example: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/
Here is one like it that is crawled but not indexed: https://zavzaseal.com/cp-v1/premier-spray-foam-insulation-contractors-in-jamaica-ny/
I appreciate your time and concern. Have a great weekend!
-
We recommend manually submitting each page or blog post you don't think has been crawled and indexed, and manually submiting into Google Search console.
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
-
How Do You Think My Local SEO Multi-location Geotargeting Strategy Will Work?
I have a question. I just got a full-time job at Zavza Seal, an upstanding insulation contractor targeting neighborhoods of Suffolk and Nassau counties in New York. I was hired as an SEO content specialist. (Thanks Rand! You're one of my mentors~!) So, they handed me a spreadsheet of pages for city-specific terms, and they had a system in place for local rankings. But I was taught to do service-specific city pages a certain way. If the search term is for people looking for a service in that town, that's what you give them. However, I was told to proofread them, and as an SEO specialist, I couldn't keep my hands off of them. The pages were skimpy. (Example: h2, paragraph, bullets, short paragraph summary, short paragraph about the city.) What threw me off is that the content, while it was service specific, it was blog topics localized. Those are great (when long enough and optimized to compete in SERPs) but I've never seen them done on service pages. (Example: Why is Mold Remediation Necessary in Baldwin?. Now, this went in two directions in my mind. (and I wanted to do the best for the company, because I'm a wicked brat for teams, AND I get commissions on leads, so that was motivation, too.) 🐷 Anyway, 1. This could be a new approach and worthy of an SEO study on my startup site, where I take on part time clients after work, because I've never seen it done before and it could, if optimized for the target service and city rank high in SERPs AND build thought leadership and authority as a local expert. (Whereas city service pages in standard format would just promote your service. ..) What do you guys think? I just put the topic up for discussion for my team, asked them about it in detail and asked if they wanted to A'/B test a few to see what get's better traction organically. Mr. Fishkin was one of my mentors. I really wish I just had his number for this one LOL.
Local SEO | | ThisTimeWereOn0 -
Blocking in Robots.txt and the re-indexing - DA effects?
I have two good high level DA sites that target the US (.com) and UK (.co.uk). The .com ranks well but is dormant from a commercial aspect - the .co.uk is the commercial focus and gets great traffic. Issue is the .com ranks for brand in the UK - I want the .co.uk to rank for brand in the UK. I can't 301 the .com as it will be used again in the near future. I want to block the .com in Robots.txt with a view to un-block it again when I need it. I don't think the DA would be affected as the links stay and the sites live (just not indexed) so when I unblock it should be fine - HOWEVER - my query is things like organic CTR data that Google records and other factors won't contribute to its value. Has anyone ever blocked and un-blocked and whats the affects pls? All answers greatly received - cheers GB
Technical SEO | | Bush_JSM0 -
Unsolved Duplicate LocalBusiness Schema Markup
Hello! I've been having a hard time finding an answer to this specific question so I figured I'd drop it here. I always add custom LocalBusiness markup to clients' homepages, but sometimes the client's website provider will include their own automated LocalBusiness markup. The codes I create often include more information. Assuming the website provider is unwilling to remove their markup, is it a bad idea to include my code as well? It seems like it could potentially be read as spammy by Google. Do the pros of having more detailed markup outweigh that potential negative impact?
Local Website Optimization | | GoogleAlgoServant0 -
Keyword rich domain names -> Point to sales funnel sites or to landing pages on primary domain?
Hey everyone,
Local SEO | | Transpera
We have a tonne of old domains we have done nothing with. All of them are keyword-rich domains.
Things like "[City]SEOPro" or "[City]DigitalMarketing" where [city] is a city that we are already targeting services in. So all of these domains will be targeted for local cities as keywords. We have been having an internal debate about whether or not we should just host sales funnel pages on these domains, that are rich in keywords and content......... ... Or ... ... Should we point these domains to landing pages on our existing domain that are basically the same as what we would do with the sales funnel pages, but are on our primary site? (keyword rich, with good and plentiful content) Then, as a follow-up question... Should these be set as just 301 redirects on these domains to our actual primary domain so the browser sees the landing page domain instead of the actual keyword-rich domain? ( [city]seopro.com ) Thanks guys. I know for some, the response will be an obvious one. However; we have probably way over thought this and have arguments for almost every scenario. We think we have an answer but wanted to send this out to the community first. I won't post what we are thinking yet, so that the answers can remain unbiased for now and we can have a conversation without it being swayed any one way. We understand that 301 redirects would be seen as a doorway page.
We are also only discussing in the context of organic search only.
If we ran the domains as their own sites, they would be about 3 pages of content only. Pretty static, but good content. Think of a PAS style sales funnel. Problem -> Acknowledgement -> Solution.0 -
Location based landing pages best practices
Hello, I am looking for the communities thoughts on location-based landing pages. That is, writing out dozens, sometimes hundreds of landing pages in the format of domain.com/[keyword]-[location] and recycling the same content over and over to localize organic search engine results. i have done it with multiple websites and seen tremendous success, however, i am considering getting rid of these pages and having all of the spammy location based pages 301 redirect to my main page domain.com/[keyword] I am considering this because the above practice seems to be a bit black-hat / spammy and those pages do not offer any unique or valuable content. While i have seen great results from this practice, i feel like Google will eventually penalize this or may already be penalizing me without me knowing it. At the same time, i am hesitant to because these pages are ranking. i.e. domain.com/[keyword-houston] is ranking but domain.com/[keyword] is not ranking Thoughts?
Local SEO | | RyanMeighan0 -
My 12 year old site suddenly has all of its landing pages deindexed?
Half of my landing pages have suddenly been de-indexed without warning. These have been ranking for over two years! Climbing from the bottom of page two to the top three of page one with fundamental content marketing and healthy real links. I'm desperately trying to figure out what has gone wrong. They even deindexed my Medford Oregon landing page, then reinstated in and I asked to be re-indexed on search console and deindexed it again. I've checked screaming frog, and I see no robot issues. There were some wp-media attachments with kind of similar URLs (city name-locksmith) ranking on page four that I found (i thought I set Yoast to redirect all attachment, strange) and I deleted those because I thought that might be the problem. But they have deindexed even more today! We are a 12 year old company and our livelihood was built on search, which is why we have maintained good ethics (which most locksmiths don't care about) and have done our best to play by Google's rules. I checked with wp-engine and everything seems to be perfect for our hosting. Any suggestions would be so greatly appreciated.
Local SEO | | Meier0 -
Category pages are treated as duplicate content - is that a problem?
Hi there I have analyzing a webshop where we sell products for pets, gardening and the like. I am getting a lot of "Duplicate Content" alerts from Moz when doing a site crawl and I am told that the pages for e.g. cat products and gardening tools show duplicate content. Those two pages contain no identical products, so I am guessing that it is just the "set up" of the page (they look almost identical, except for the products). My question is: Is this really a problem? Does it affect my ranking in a negative way, and if so, how can I counter it? Best regards Frederik
Local SEO | | fhertzp0 -
Local SEO same company two different locations
I have a client who has 2 locations approx 20 miles apart. He wants to reach new customers at the second office location. He is an owner of a law firm he practices elder law, in the second location he has an attorney who practices injury law. The second location is in an area where targeting prospects for elder law could also be lucrative. We currently have two separate websites for each area of law. My question is... Would it be suggested to create another elder law website to target the potential clients in this second location. Also for the first location we have put in place a content marketing strategy that has increased revenue considerably. Basically creating content (blog posts) that resonate with the target audience. If a new website is in order can the blog post be posted here too with a canonical referencing the original website. Im thinking a slow redistribution of content on the new site. Advice here is greatly appreciated as this new market for my client could increase revenue even more.
Local SEO | | donsilvernail0