How does this happen?
After some research yesterday and looking at the many people who are having similar problems this is the reply I got from Bing yesterday.
Not one post (that's 360) and I can't even access my site!
I write the best I can and ensure the word count is 2500+ and I think this is about the last straw with all this BS!
Thank you for your patience!
After further review, it appears that your site https://achievesuccessfromhome.com/ did not meet the standards set by Bing the last time it was crawled.
Bing constantly prioritizes the content to be indexed that will drive highest users satisfaction. Please follow Bing Webmaster Guidelines to better understand criteria for most valuable content.
Mick
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Triblu
Premium
Hey Mick,
Looks though my MMO site has been de-indexed too. See screen print below...
Wonder it reviews are no longer in as big a demand as they once were... maybe?
When checking Google, this site IS indexed... pheeeew!
It could be that Bing is imploding in on itself. Bill Gates is no longer in charge of Microsoft now, and that COULD have a lot to do with it.
Then again... are using using the Block Editor on your website Mick?
My MMO site that has been de-indexed is using the Classic Editor still. Am wondering if THAT may be a reason...
Looks though my MMO site has been de-indexed too. See screen print below...
Wonder it reviews are no longer in as big a demand as they once were... maybe?
When checking Google, this site IS indexed... pheeeew!
It could be that Bing is imploding in on itself. Bill Gates is no longer in charge of Microsoft now, and that COULD have a lot to do with it.
Then again... are using using the Block Editor on your website Mick?
My MMO site that has been de-indexed is using the Classic Editor still. Am wondering if THAT may be a reason...
Reply
wozzy
Premium
Trish,
We can summise about anything and everything but at the end of the day we will probably be going down the wrong road anyway.
They just don't want to make life easy in fact maybe all these issues with Google and Bing are just trying to cut down the vast number of people coming on stream creating websites.
Who knows!
I don't use the block editor myself because for me I don't feel in control and besides there are literally thousands still using it.
I'm sorry to hear about your issue but it is happening to many people with no explanation at all.
I have tried all sorts re-submitting sitemap and even submitting a robots.txt file which when I tried to submit to Bing through up an error.
You mention maybe MS are struggling and if you take a look at the share price over the last 6 months.
Down from around $343 to where it is now at $261 and that is a massive drop.
So maybe you have a point there.
Maybe we will see BG back at the helm.
When did you find out that you had this problem?
Mick
We can summise about anything and everything but at the end of the day we will probably be going down the wrong road anyway.
They just don't want to make life easy in fact maybe all these issues with Google and Bing are just trying to cut down the vast number of people coming on stream creating websites.
Who knows!
I don't use the block editor myself because for me I don't feel in control and besides there are literally thousands still using it.
I'm sorry to hear about your issue but it is happening to many people with no explanation at all.
I have tried all sorts re-submitting sitemap and even submitting a robots.txt file which when I tried to submit to Bing through up an error.
You mention maybe MS are struggling and if you take a look at the share price over the last 6 months.
Down from around $343 to where it is now at $261 and that is a massive drop.
So maybe you have a point there.
Maybe we will see BG back at the helm.
When did you find out that you had this problem?
Mick
Triblu
Premium
Hey Mick,
You're not to worry. I've been checking into this and SiteSupport are working on what they think is causing this issue... so, hang in there.
Don't toss in the towel yet... 'kay?
Be watching for an announcement too. Bets there'll be one, it is THAT big of an issue.
I'm soooo glad you hung in there, discussing this issue like you have. Once you got THIS message today... well, that's what made me check my Bing Webmaster. Normally, I don't really pay much attention once my sitemaps have been accepted... but I will from now on!
You're not to worry. I've been checking into this and SiteSupport are working on what they think is causing this issue... so, hang in there.
Don't toss in the towel yet... 'kay?
Be watching for an announcement too. Bets there'll be one, it is THAT big of an issue.
I'm soooo glad you hung in there, discussing this issue like you have. Once you got THIS message today... well, that's what made me check my Bing Webmaster. Normally, I don't really pay much attention once my sitemaps have been accepted... but I will from now on!
Triblu
Premium
Okay Mick, clear the cache for your website, then log back into Bing Webmaster.
Once you're logged into your Bing Webmaster, click on "URL Inspection" that you should see on your left-hand sidebar.
Then... click on the "Live URL" TAB, enter your URL in the "URL Inspection" textbox and click on the "Inspect" button.
See if that resolves your issue. If it DOES... then be sure to click on the "Request Indexing" button, and you should be away to the races... well, maybe. ;-)
Let me know if that worked for you?
Once you're logged into your Bing Webmaster, click on "URL Inspection" that you should see on your left-hand sidebar.
Then... click on the "Live URL" TAB, enter your URL in the "URL Inspection" textbox and click on the "Inspect" button.
See if that resolves your issue. If it DOES... then be sure to click on the "Request Indexing" button, and you should be away to the races... well, maybe. ;-)
Let me know if that worked for you?
Triblu
Premium
Here's how to clear the cache on your WA hosted website: How to Clear the Cache on WA Hosted Websites Clear your browser on a regular basis is always recommended.
Triblu
Premium
How long does deleting your cache take?
OR following the steps inside your Bing Webmaster account?
Depends on when you decide to do this. But you don't have to Mick. Thought you'd want to know that one issue has been fixed.
It worked to resolve my site and it MIGHT work to resolve yours.
OR following the steps inside your Bing Webmaster account?
Depends on when you decide to do this. But you don't have to Mick. Thought you'd want to know that one issue has been fixed.
It worked to resolve my site and it MIGHT work to resolve yours.
Triblu
Premium
Ah, that's why we need to provide more details when asking a question.
I took the exact same steps that I suggested you to take, and saw positive results immediately, which is why I suggested what I did.
Just make SURE you are testing the "Live URL", because my Bing Webmaster took my browser back to the other tab, and I had to click on "Live URL" a second time to see the positive results.
Am now waiting for the site to be totally re-indexed.
I took the exact same steps that I suggested you to take, and saw positive results immediately, which is why I suggested what I did.
Just make SURE you are testing the "Live URL", because my Bing Webmaster took my browser back to the other tab, and I had to click on "Live URL" a second time to see the positive results.
Am now waiting for the site to be totally re-indexed.
wozzy
Premium
I did the exact steps that you suggested and thought that I would have to wait for something to be triggered so I left it till the morning.
Still no joy.
Do you have a Robots.txt file and was it submitted?
I have managed to do this today and it went a little further than it has done and according to support I just have to wait and see what happens.
So when you said that you noticed an immediate change.
How so?
Did you just use the site: command and it found your site?
Cheers
Mick
Still no joy.
Do you have a Robots.txt file and was it submitted?
I have managed to do this today and it went a little further than it has done and according to support I just have to wait and see what happens.
So when you said that you noticed an immediate change.
How so?
Did you just use the site: command and it found your site?
Cheers
Mick
Triblu
Premium
YOU ASKED: How so?
MY RESPONSE: Because the error that was discovered and fixed was the ONLY issue that had affected my MMO website.
I requested Bing to Index my site, so, NO, I did NOT try searching for my site on Bing, as their script has yet to re-index that site.
The "Live URL" tab clearly stated the site was no longer blocked. Which is why I suggested that you take the steps I stated above.
Seems like you are now on your way to resolve your issues.
I too had Errors brought to my attention in the "Live URL" tab and most... but now all... have been fixed.
Bing's complaint that I did not fix is that they stated that some of my titles are too long. Those I have yet to consider.
But some of my ALT tags had vanished from the Meta Library, yet were ON the posts. Then I went back to the posts to copy the EXACT ALT tag used, and pasted each one into the relevant images... VOILA!
MY RESPONSE: Because the error that was discovered and fixed was the ONLY issue that had affected my MMO website.
I requested Bing to Index my site, so, NO, I did NOT try searching for my site on Bing, as their script has yet to re-index that site.
The "Live URL" tab clearly stated the site was no longer blocked. Which is why I suggested that you take the steps I stated above.
Seems like you are now on your way to resolve your issues.
I too had Errors brought to my attention in the "Live URL" tab and most... but now all... have been fixed.
Bing's complaint that I did not fix is that they stated that some of my titles are too long. Those I have yet to consider.
But some of my ALT tags had vanished from the Meta Library, yet were ON the posts. Then I went back to the posts to copy the EXACT ALT tag used, and pasted each one into the relevant images... VOILA!
ParthaB
Premium
Hey Mick,
It's ALL over the internet.
It's been happening with amazing regularity to many people over the last year.
I even saw a forum thread (externally) where someone had their 8+ year website banned from Bing.
They left it a couple of weeks, replied to Bing to say they had fixed the issues, and they were reindexed within a couple of weeks.
However, the site was banned again about a month later.
The person MADE ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGES from being banned the first time, to being reindexed, to being banned again.
It just doesn't make sense, does it?
There is a lot of talk about Bing no longer giving a s**t about webmasters, and it appears they have now also outsourced their customer services.
So, it appears that Bing themselves are no longer responding to any queries.
Therefore, if you ever do manage do get through to bing "Support" which apparently is pretty much impossible, you will be speaking to an outsourced employee who knows nothing about Bing and will be responding to queries from a script.
In truth, Bing isn't all that anymore, and in fact, I actually get more daily traffic from DuckDuckGo than BIng and Yahoo combined.
However, as ALL of my research is conducted in Google, you can probably guess that approximately 95% of my traffic comes from Google.
Plus, Google are a proper busiiness and will actually pre-warn you (usually via GSC) if there are any violations on your site that need to be fixed.
Anyway, let's see what happens to your site over the next 2 months, as your issues appear to have been resolved.
As of April 2022:
Search Engine Market Share:
Google - 92.07%
Bing - 3.04%
Yahoo - 1.39%
Baidu - 1.27%
Yandex - 0.87%
DuckDuckGo - 0.68%
(And yet I somehow get far more traffic from DuckDuckGo than the other SMALLER search engines).
Partha
It's ALL over the internet.
It's been happening with amazing regularity to many people over the last year.
I even saw a forum thread (externally) where someone had their 8+ year website banned from Bing.
They left it a couple of weeks, replied to Bing to say they had fixed the issues, and they were reindexed within a couple of weeks.
However, the site was banned again about a month later.
The person MADE ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGES from being banned the first time, to being reindexed, to being banned again.
It just doesn't make sense, does it?
There is a lot of talk about Bing no longer giving a s**t about webmasters, and it appears they have now also outsourced their customer services.
So, it appears that Bing themselves are no longer responding to any queries.
Therefore, if you ever do manage do get through to bing "Support" which apparently is pretty much impossible, you will be speaking to an outsourced employee who knows nothing about Bing and will be responding to queries from a script.
In truth, Bing isn't all that anymore, and in fact, I actually get more daily traffic from DuckDuckGo than BIng and Yahoo combined.
However, as ALL of my research is conducted in Google, you can probably guess that approximately 95% of my traffic comes from Google.
Plus, Google are a proper busiiness and will actually pre-warn you (usually via GSC) if there are any violations on your site that need to be fixed.
Anyway, let's see what happens to your site over the next 2 months, as your issues appear to have been resolved.
As of April 2022:
Search Engine Market Share:
Google - 92.07%
Bing - 3.04%
Yahoo - 1.39%
Baidu - 1.27%
Yandex - 0.87%
DuckDuckGo - 0.68%
(And yet I somehow get far more traffic from DuckDuckGo than the other SMALLER search engines).
Partha
wozzy
Premium
Partha,
Well, I did get a reply pretty quickly and like you said, they might as well have not bothered.
It looks like nobody gives a shit anymore, even Google and more and more people seem to be heading over to Youtube and guess what it is just a matter of time before people start getting banned from there too.
After all, Google owns that too!
With regards to Bing, I just can't understand what the problem is as the guidelines I have been using are the WA ones and also following and seeing what others are doing.
Unique content etc
So in my eyes, I am not doing anything different from what others are doing and who are having success.
I am not about to go through their guidelines and scrutinize everything that I have done just because these f*ckers don't give a flying f*ck.
That's the 2nd time I have heard DuckDuckGo mentioned today!
Cheers
Mick
Well, I did get a reply pretty quickly and like you said, they might as well have not bothered.
It looks like nobody gives a shit anymore, even Google and more and more people seem to be heading over to Youtube and guess what it is just a matter of time before people start getting banned from there too.
After all, Google owns that too!
With regards to Bing, I just can't understand what the problem is as the guidelines I have been using are the WA ones and also following and seeing what others are doing.
Unique content etc
So in my eyes, I am not doing anything different from what others are doing and who are having success.
I am not about to go through their guidelines and scrutinize everything that I have done just because these f*ckers don't give a flying f*ck.
That's the 2nd time I have heard DuckDuckGo mentioned today!
Cheers
Mick
wozzy
Premium
Partha,
Just looking at DuckDuckGo...
==================================================DuckDuckGo automatically indexes the web, so you don't need to manually submit your website to them. In fact, it uses over 400 sources and Bing's search results, so if you've followed the previous steps to submit to Bing (and Yahoo), you did all you needed to speed up indexing for your site on DuckDuckGo
==================================================
It uses Bing which means if you aren't indexed there then the likelihood of you showing up in that search engine is highly unlikely.
Cheers
Mick
Just looking at DuckDuckGo...
==================================================DuckDuckGo automatically indexes the web, so you don't need to manually submit your website to them. In fact, it uses over 400 sources and Bing's search results, so if you've followed the previous steps to submit to Bing (and Yahoo), you did all you needed to speed up indexing for your site on DuckDuckGo
==================================================
It uses Bing which means if you aren't indexed there then the likelihood of you showing up in that search engine is highly unlikely.
Cheers
Mick
ParthaB
Premium
Sorry Mick,
I should've probably mentioned that (although, I was just looking at my own traffic figures before replying)...
Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and AOL use Bing search results.
However, as I say, this is just a tiny piece of the pie.
Personally, I don't overly worry about what MAY or MAY NOT happen in the future.
I have always relied on Google, plus, if you really focus tightly on ONE other platform (Social media), that's fine too.
I know many people say you need to diversify, and you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket, etc.
And while this is true to an extent, I often feel that the reason that many people struggle with traffic is because they're trying to spread themeselves too thin.
Yes, if I get banned from Google, my business could come to a complete halt overnight.
Then again, if I go out for a walk in the morning, I could get run over.
If I drive the car, the engine could fall out.
If I play football with my son, I could break my leg.
If if if
could could could
For me, I'm blogging and my main source of traffic is organic.
Do I get traffic from other sources?
Of course.
Are the other sources what most people would consider decent traffic?
Of course.
Any business will have its ups-and-downs. Some days things will seem like a breeze, other days it seems as though the whole world is against you.
Success is about the achieving the good stuff, it's how well you handle the bad stuff.
Have a read of Mark Manson's blog, it'll take you back to your Army days, and you'll be swearing like a trooper, LOL, but the guy knows how to blog, how to earn money, and how to deal with adversity.
Partha
I should've probably mentioned that (although, I was just looking at my own traffic figures before replying)...
Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and AOL use Bing search results.
However, as I say, this is just a tiny piece of the pie.
Personally, I don't overly worry about what MAY or MAY NOT happen in the future.
I have always relied on Google, plus, if you really focus tightly on ONE other platform (Social media), that's fine too.
I know many people say you need to diversify, and you shouldn't have all your eggs in one basket, etc.
And while this is true to an extent, I often feel that the reason that many people struggle with traffic is because they're trying to spread themeselves too thin.
Yes, if I get banned from Google, my business could come to a complete halt overnight.
Then again, if I go out for a walk in the morning, I could get run over.
If I drive the car, the engine could fall out.
If I play football with my son, I could break my leg.
If if if
could could could
For me, I'm blogging and my main source of traffic is organic.
Do I get traffic from other sources?
Of course.
Are the other sources what most people would consider decent traffic?
Of course.
Any business will have its ups-and-downs. Some days things will seem like a breeze, other days it seems as though the whole world is against you.
Success is about the achieving the good stuff, it's how well you handle the bad stuff.
Have a read of Mark Manson's blog, it'll take you back to your Army days, and you'll be swearing like a trooper, LOL, but the guy knows how to blog, how to earn money, and how to deal with adversity.
Partha
JeffreyBrown
Premium Plus
wozzy
Premium
wozzy
Premium
Just what I have pasted in the message, is that my site does not comply with Bings standards and a link to the guidelines.
I comply with what we have been taught here at WA and follow several members who are having success here.
So what I am doing as far as I am concerned is no different and all the content is unique.
So that amounts to nearly 400 posts that are not getting indexed in Bing.
I comply with what we have been taught here at WA and follow several members who are having success here.
So what I am doing as far as I am concerned is no different and all the content is unique.
So that amounts to nearly 400 posts that are not getting indexed in Bing.
Zoopie
Premium
I have had problems with Google accepting my MMO site and basically had nothing indexed for the last couple of months, but it all came through today. Well some, not all.
Bing though, never had problems..but they are not the biggest or best. Maybe move on to Duck Duck go and establish a presence there as well. Smaller group of professionals.
There are many more areas for promoting than just Bing.
Me, I would just keep writing. But I am well known as being pig headed.
Bing though, never had problems..but they are not the biggest or best. Maybe move on to Duck Duck go and establish a presence there as well. Smaller group of professionals.
There are many more areas for promoting than just Bing.
Me, I would just keep writing. But I am well known as being pig headed.
wozzy
Premium
I have never really paid much attention to BIng, in fact, the only time I paid any attention was when manually submitting posts through Console and Webmaster.
Google owns around 94% so that's where I have concentrated.
I assumed things were ok as there were no indications such as messages to warn me.
It was only when I read Dylan's post the other day that I thought I would see how things were performing in Bing.
That's when I couldn't even find my site.
If I type the name with spaces into Google it is right at the top so I looked further and found nothing was indexed there either.
Going through the guidelines and I noticed a mention of...
Robots.txt file
Now I did a search in Google and it was saying that you don't need a Robots.txt file.
But if you read the guidelines that sort of says that you do need this file.
==============================
Make your sitemap available to Bing by:
Submitting it to Bing using the Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemap tool
Inserting the following line in the robots.txt file, specifying the path to your sitemap:
==============================
Mick
Google owns around 94% so that's where I have concentrated.
I assumed things were ok as there were no indications such as messages to warn me.
It was only when I read Dylan's post the other day that I thought I would see how things were performing in Bing.
That's when I couldn't even find my site.
If I type the name with spaces into Google it is right at the top so I looked further and found nothing was indexed there either.
Going through the guidelines and I noticed a mention of...
Robots.txt file
Now I did a search in Google and it was saying that you don't need a Robots.txt file.
But if you read the guidelines that sort of says that you do need this file.
==============================
Make your sitemap available to Bing by:
Submitting it to Bing using the Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemap tool
Inserting the following line in the robots.txt file, specifying the path to your sitemap:
==============================
Mick
