Page missing from Google index
-
Hi all,
One of our most important pages seems to be missing from the Google index.
A number of our collections pages (e.g., http://perfectlinens.com/collections/size-king) are thin, so we've included a canonical reference in all of them to the main collection page (http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all).
However, I don't see the main collection page in any Google search result. When I search using "info:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all", the page displayed is our homepage. Why is this happening?
The main collection page has a rel=canonical reference to itself (auto-generated by Shopify so I can't control that).
Thanks!
-
In general, for link value to transfer either through 301s or canonicals, the content of the page needs to be nearly identical. See Cyrus' post for more. And canonicals are not always followed by Google, they are just a "hint", so it's unlikely you'll pass much value that way.
-
Dan, thanks for that response! I wasn't aware that our homepage had a canonical reference to our category page. On closer examination, I found that our category page in return had a canonical reference to our homepage. Messed up!
I've fixed that, and now resubmitted that page to Google using Search Console. Hopefully that will fix our issues.
Just one last question - why do you prefer noindex over canonical? If I had some backlinks to a thin category page (e.g., /collections/twin), wouldn't it be better to 'transfer' those benefits to our main category page (/collections/all) using canonical references?
Thanks again
-
Hello
Ahh ok, missed that detail.
I created a quick video for you ---> http://screencast.com/t/IKkEikyr
I think this is a bit of a complicated situation which will be tough to diagnose and fix in a Q&A thread. I would suggest catalog the different settings of your site in a spreadsheet like I show in the video.
Essentially, the canonical settings are just "suggestions" for Google and not "directives" so they will ignore them if they think they have been set in error.
I would start by clearly defining the end result you want (what pages should be crawled, and what should be indexed) and work backwards from there to apply the right settings.
I would probably try to use noindex, robots.txt etc before resorting to a canonical.
-
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your response. The page that you see when you type in our category page is in fact, our home page. e.g., when I do info:page A, or cache: page A, the result is for page B. Why is this happening if page A does not have a canonical reference or a redirect of any kind to B?
Thanks.
-
FYI - to check if a page is indexed try typing site:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all into the Google search bar, or cache:http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all into your browser.
-
Hi There!
That page is in fact indexed and cached for me! Can you check again? And let me know?
-Dan
-
Patrick, thank you for your response.
1. The reason we're using canonical references on those pages is because they are almost identical copies of each other. In the future, we'll create some content on them and they can then stand by themselves.
2. But the original question remains - why is the main page (http://perfectlinens.com/collections/all) missing from the Google index? It's been on the site for a long time, it's one of our most important pages, it's in our sitemap, and robots.txt is not blocking it.
Thank you for your other tips though - I appreciate them, and will put them on our to-do list.
-
Hi there
First, those pages (size-king) should be canonicalized to their own pages, not canonicaling back to the "all" pages. This could be a potentially bad customer experience and you could be missing out on a LOT of organic traffic if some of those product pages are targeting high volume, low competition keywords / variations.
I would work on expanding the content on those product pages and implementing Schema. You have a lot of opportunities to be implementing these tags which will also help your search visibility.
Lastly, depending on when you implemented these canonical tags and your sitemap, Google and other search engines could still be indexing them. When did you upload your sitemap / implement canonical tags? Also, have you submitted these sitemaps to Google and Bing? I recommend you do so if you didn't!
And always make sure your robots.txt and meta tags aren't inadvertently blocking key pages from search! This is an often overlooked area in SEO!
But more than anything - work on that content for your product, canonical tag them to their pages, and add schema. It will make a world a difference!
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Patrick
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
-
Recover google INdexing issue after fixing malware attack.
Dear My Niche site attacked by malware on 1 st march 2018. Hacker inject a php file on my blogpage. Injected link like: mydomain.com/blog/dmy4xa.php? Then I scan My site by wordfence. Identifying all malware code.Then manually clean whole site with database. My site is completely free from malware. and remove all malware link from webmaster tools. Even Block my blog page by robots.txt . But new malware link index every week. So i need to remove those link every week. So this issue I decided to rebuild my site. Finally I rebuild my site another server. Then I flash my current server and migrate my site from those server on 10th january 2019 . I wait 1 month to deindex malware link. But new link are indexing every week. I discourage site for over 1 week and even delete site from google webmaster tools with all properties as well as verification file from server. Over 1 week , Link are showing. I feel boar to delete malware link every week. I need permanent solution. Please give me a perfect solution for this malware link index. Google index about 100 url .After that I clean my site with some tools. My site was free from malware. But Ne
Technical SEO | | Gfound1230 -
How to get google to forget my old but still working page and list my new fully optimized page for a keyword?
Hi There! (i am beginner in seo) I have dynamic and static pages on our site. I created a static page for a specific keyword. Fully optimized it, (h1, alt, metas, etc.....maybe too optimized). My problem is that this page is alive for weeks, checked it in GWT and it is in robots.txt, google sees it, and indexed it. BUT whenewer i do a search for that keyword, we still appear with the dynamically created link in the google listings. How could i "redirect" google, if sy make a search for that keyword than shows our optimized page? Is there a tool for that? I cant delete the dynamic page... Any ideas? Thx Andrew
Technical SEO | | Neckermann0 -
Getting Google to index a large PDF file
Hello! We have a 100+ MB PDF with multiple pages that we want Google to fully index on our server/website. First of all, is it even possible for Google to index a PDF file of this size? It's been up on our server for a few days, and my colleague did a Googlebot fetch via Webmaster Tools, but it still hasn't happened yet. My theories as to why this may not work: A) We have no actual link(s) to the pdf anywhere on our website. B) This PDF is approx 130 MB and very slow to load. I added some compression to it, but that only got it down to 105 MB. Any tips or suggestions on getting this thing indexed in Google would be appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BBEXNinja0 -
Google Indexed Only 1 Page
Hi, I'm new and hope this forum can help me. I have recently resubmit my sitemap and Google only Indexed 1 Page. I can still see many of my old indexed pages in the SERP's? I have upgraded my template and graded all my pages to A's on SEOmoz, I have solid backlinks and have been building them over time. I have redirected all my 404 errors in .htaccess and removed /index.php from my url's. I have never done this before but my website runs perfect and all my pages redirect as I hoped. My site: www.FunerallCoverFinder.co.za How do I figure out what the problem is? Thanks in Advance!
Technical SEO | | Klement690 -
/index.php/ page
I was wondering if my system creates this page www my domain com/index.php/ is it better to block with robot.txt or just canonize?
Technical SEO | | ciznerguy0 -
Exclude mobile pages from non mobile Google serps
Hi Everybody I see that a lot of our pages on our mobile shop has started to turn up when i do site:domainname.com on google. As they could potentially compete with the similar non mobile version of the same page, is there some way to exlude the mobile domain in non mobile google result without blocking the mobile version altogether. We use an m.domain.com version for our mobile site.
Technical SEO | | AndersDK0 -
Removing a site from Google's index
We have a site we'd like to have pulled from Google's index. Back in late June, we disallowed robot access to the site through the robots.txt file and added a robots meta tag with "no index,no follow" commands. The expectation was that Google would eventually crawl the site and remove it from the index in response to those tags. The problem is that Google hasn't come back to crawl the site since late May. Is there a way to speed up this process and communicate to Google that we want the entire site out of the index, or do we just have to wait until it's eventually crawled again?
Technical SEO | | issuebasedmedia0 -
Home Page Indexing Question/Problem
Hello Everyone, Background: I recently decided to change the preferred domain settings in WM Tools from the non www version of my site to the www version. I did this because there is a redirect from the non www to the www and I've built all of my internal links with the www. Everything I read on SEO Moz seemed to indicate that this was a good move. Traffic has been down/volatile but I think it's attributable mostly to a recent site change/redesign. Having said that the preferred domain change did seem to drop traffic an additional notch. I made the move two weeks ago. Here is the question: When I google my site, the home page shows up as the site title without the custom title tags I've written. The page that displays in the SERP is still the non www version of the site. a site:www.mysite.com search shows an internal page first but doesn't return the home page as a result. All other pages pop up indexed with the www version of the page. a site:mysite.com (notice lack of www) search DOES SHOW my home page and my custom title tags but with a non www version of the page. All other pages pop up indexed with the www version of the page. Any one have thoughts on this? Is this a classic example of waiting on Google to catch up with the changes to my tiny little site?
Technical SEO | | JSOC0