Top 12 Key Indicators Why Google Isn't Indexing Your Website
There are numerous reasons why Google isn't indexing your site, and this is not new, and you are not alone. Many issues may stop Google from indexing your web pages, and here are the prominent ones for your perusal.
This article also uncovers the solutions you will need to fix, and when they are settled, Google will automatically start indexing...
1. Zero Mobile-friendly Website
A mobile-friendly website gets your site indexed by Google. Content and SEO tactics take second place, and smart device optimization plays a pivotal role for Google to index your website. Without smartphone and tablet optimizations, you are going to lose on the rankings.
The best way to accomplish it is by adding responsive design principles like fluid grids and CSS Media Queries. With this, your users will find what they need without experiencing any navigation problems.
Google's Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool were the hiccups, and you can work your way through it.
2. No Domain Name
Google won't index if there is no domain name for your website. Wrong URL for the content or not set up correctly on WordPress could be the reasons behind the indexing issues.
Here are some fixes to have it corrected. Find out whether the web address starts with "https://abc.abc…" which signifies that a website visitor might be typing in an IP address instead of a domain name and getting redirected to your website.
Furthermore, the IP address redirection may not be configured correctly.
Adding 301 redirects from WWW versions of pages back onto their respective domains saves you from the mess. It's essential to ensure that you have a domain name to rank and be competitive on Google.
3. Site Loads Slowly
Google never recognizes a slow loading website - means no indexing.
Here are a couple of reasons for a slow loading site:
- Too much content for a user's browser to handle
- Old-fashioned server with limited resources
Solutions
- Webpagetest.org – Use this tool to find out if the site is loading fast. You would be able to get a clear picture of what is causing the site to load slow. Quickly identify significant page speed issues before they cause serious problems.
- Google Pagespeed Insights – Minimizing connections, reducing payload size, and leveraging browser caching come to light using this tool. Improve each aspect of the site based on detailed insights.
Ensure that your page speed numbers touch 70 plus.
4. Complicated Coding Language
Google avoids indexing a website if the coding language is in a complex way. No matter what language you use, it causes crawling and indexing problems when the settings are incorrect.
Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool to see if your site is mobile-friendly and fix issues immediately. If it still offers stalls to indexing, check their guidelines about all manner of design quirks.
5. Content Factor
Unique content-rich pages are essential for thriving on Google. On the other hand, minimal content doesn't meet your competition's levels. According to our content and SEO experts, a page with a minimum of 700 to 1200 words will easily get indexed.
Make sure whatever goes on your site is plagiarism-free, informative, and unique from your point of view. If you compromise on those lines, there are 70% chances of Google finding another site. Besides that, take extra care to deliver world-class content, and it is ideal for your website's success.
Handling Thin Content: Pages with the content below the word count of 100 words are commonly known as thin content. Such pages never support the SEO cause and lead to low search engine ranks. At times, Google skips the indexing so as to they don't contain informative and much unique content.
6. User-friendly Website
SEO's success depends on the user-friendly and engaging site. Google identifies user-friendly pages that allow visitors to find what they're looking for and navigate the website seamlessly.
With the launch of Core Web Vitals - Google never recognizes a website that takes forever to load, has confusing navigation, etc.,
Does your content provide a wow feeling? Do visitors like sharing your articles and other valuable information from your resources section? If your answer to this is a NO! then this is why Google has stopped indexing your site. Ensure you pull all the strings to rank on top!
7. Plugins & Googlebot Block
Robots.txt plugin is one good example. When your robots.txt file is set through this plugin, Googlebot will not be able to crawl it. Basically, you chose to no-index your site.
Your robots.txt file should not have the following lines:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
The forward slash indicates that the robots.txt file thwarts all the site's root folder pages.
Your robots.txt file should look like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
8. Redirect Loop
Redirect loops prevent Google indexing. It occurs by a common typo and can be fixed:
Pull out the page that is causing the redirect loop. Find HTML source of one of your posts on this page or in an .htaccess file for WordPress websites. Then look for "Redirect 301" to see which page it's trying to direct traffic from. Repair any 302 redirects and make sure they are set to 301.
Windows Explorer ("find" or Command + F if Mac) to search through all files containing "redirect." A thorough check will help you locate where the problem lies. Fix the typos, then use redirection code like below:
404 (Status Code) doesn't show up in Google Search Console every time. External crawlers like Screaming Frog will help you pull the status codes for 404s and other related errors.
When it is fixed, the page should be indexed soon enough.
9. Content Rendered Through JavaScript
In some cases, JavaScript prevents crawling with techniques akin to cloaking.
While rendering HTML vs. raw HTML, and there is a link in the raw HTML that isn't in the generated HTML, Google fails to crawl or index that particular link.
Some of us tend to hide our JS and CSS files, and it is not the right thing to do. Google has already notified that it would see all the JS and CSS files when they crawl. The search engine giant wants you to keep all JS and CSS crawlable.
10. Noindex, Nofollow - MetaTags
When meta tags are set to noindex, nofollow the page may not have been re-indexed. And using a plugin to block Google from crawling your site, that particular page may never be indexed again.
Solution: Change any meta tags with the words noindex, nofollow.
11. Search Engine Friendly Sitemap
It is a must for a website to have a sitemap.
Sitemap contains all the pages of your website. It helps Google to find and associate the pages with your website. Therefore, it ensures all the pages get crawled and indexed.
The best format for sitemaps is XML Sitemaps.
12. Getting Over With Google Penalization
A penalized website should clean up the mess to invite Google Search Console to crawl and index again. Without clearing the previous act, you cannot expect Google to do its job.
Do a complete content overhaul and rebuild your domain; that is the approach to clean up your act.
Conclusion
Our digital marketing experts / SEO experts have resolved issues related to Google indexing in the past. If your website faces such problems, we welcome you to discuss them with our Google experts. To get started, our experts will investigate your website, provide a free audit and explain how we can help.