Not being indexed Part 2: Doing my homework!
So, after my last post about the struggles that I'm having with my website and getting my posts indexed, I thought I'd give you a quick update on my progress so far.
If you haven't read the post, you can read it at: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/gail-uk/blog/is-it-better-not-to-know-problems-with-indexing-pages
FIRSTLY, I need to thank all the people who reached out to me and offered me some great advice on how to move forward here, especially Jay, Isabella, Fleeky, Jason, JarieLyn, Maria and Phil for their kind words of support and advice.
There was a theme that came up when people visited the site, which suggested that although my content was good, with OK SEO and relevant information, the feedback coming in was that the user experience could be improved, especially with my menu and structure.
I realised that I started my site a few years ago with an idea about the niche, but over time, this has refined and expanded, and although I've been feverishly publishing in the past few months, I've not given a lot of thought to the structure of the site.
So, in my infinite wisdom, there was a discrepancy between what I thought I had created and what I had actually built. Something akin to this!
My homework!
So I've been working on a few things over the past few days, including:
- A revised and much simplified top menu
- Deleting irrelevant content
- A revised structure
- Revised categories
I've been particularly working on the categories and how people can find information relevant to what they are looking for, other than just scrolling through the blog (I have over 120 articles, which would take forever, and even then, they'd only see a fraction.)
Research
I decided to check out my competitors and see how they have structured their content and realised that mine was too general and I had too many categories, making posts difficult to find. I had over 28 categories, so this list in my footer was too long and cumbersome. This was great research as it gave me some ideas too!
So, I decided to create a new "Topics" page, which now sits clearly in my top menu, and under that are my reorganised 12 categories. All my posts have been recategorised into these 12 topics, and there is a short description under each. You can click on the images, which take you to the Wordpress category for that page (ie. a selective list of the posts in that category).
I made each of the category images in Canva (I LOVE Canva) and then used columns in the page to set them out in a grid. I just used an 800 x 800 pixel design with a graduated background, used some graphic elements from the Canva library and added some text!
Here is a mock up of the new page.
I'm very pleased with the way it has turned out, and hopefully this will help with my indexing and ranking!
More to do...
I still have lots more to do, including:
- Fixing broken links
- Updating dated content
- Finding other ways to drive traffic instead of just search engines
And all these are in hand, although it will take time. I'm aware of that, but SO FAR, SO GOOD!
I'm here for the long haul, so as long as I keep breathing, I figure I'll be OK!! :)
Key messages
Writing content is great, but don't forget the structure you are creating.
Keep a good overview of your site and get feedback from people who know (all your friends at WA).
Set aside a maintenance day for your site once a week to check on all the issues going forward - after all... "A maintenance day keeps the gremlins away!
Will it work?
Who knows? When I last checked my indexed articles today for this site, it's gone DOWN from 22 to 2!!! 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲😲
Am I bothered? Of course, a bit, but I know I'm doing everything I can now to fix the issues and things will get better. I have faith!!
Gail
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Recent Comments
41
Hi Gail,
Google Search Console (GSC) deindexing website pages/posts is nothing new.
GSC is not perfect, last week GSC CRASHED, not a lot of people realise that and it had to reset itself.
I have been reading stories that GSC is ignoring Robots.txt files and scanning websites itself and has been indexing pages that dont exist, I dont know how that can happen because there are several ways to remove a URL from your website.
In GSC you can click on the removals tool in GSC and block the URL, or you can delete the URL in your back office so the URL is in the bin, just not deleted.
Ok, lets get back on track, did anybody in wealthy affiliate realise that not doing ANYTHING to your webpages/posts in GSC is actually the best thing that you can do?
Its True!!
I got fed up with checking GSC and decided that I was wasting too much time adding my URL's to the URL inspection section and then left it and now GSC is crawling all of my websites at a steady pace and I am not interrupting the crawl process by intermittently adding a new URL into the GSC and disrupting the GSC crawling flow.
There is ALSO another complex note I would like to mention, GSC can sometimes not access the Wealthy Affiliate Server which is provided by the Amazon Technologies Server, here is an example of MY crawl process and you can check your own GSC process by going to YOUR GSC;
Google Search Console - Settings - Crawl stats - Open report - Host status and you will see a report that looks like THIS below: Then click on Server Connectivity and see how often the Amazon Technologies Server is dropping out from YOUR website.
Come back here and let us know how your display looks, this is why your pages are being DE-indexed because the server is dropping out when GSC is trying to access/scan your website to index your pages.
Regards
Brian
Thanks, Brian. I really appreciate your info here. I have got fed up with checking things and I think I agree that sometimes it is better to do nothing and let things settle down. I have stopped checking for now as I'm doing the structural updates that I need to do. I do think that server availability may be a problem as well so I'll look into that. Thanks again for the info. Hopefully in a couple of months, things will be better. Gail
I'm running into a very similar issue to yours except Google is saying there are non-index tags or instructions on ALL of my posts now and I don't see how as I cannot find them. I've everything I can to correct it, but Google says the problem still exists. I'm at a standstill and cannot figure out how to fix this.
Could be a glitch. Have you submitted a ticket to site support? I had something like it happen after moving a site from siterubix to a dot com. They got it fixed quickly.
I did contact site support when I started having issues and they looked into the back office part of the site for me. Can't say it really got fixed though as I still have those issues and again, I can't find any "non-index" tags. I know you don't need to index ALL pages such as feeds, etc. I'd just like my main articles to be indexed.
the fact that this has caused you to really look at your site and think like a visitor is brilliant...
this is what most of us need to do occasionally...
we create content and publish it mostly without a plan....
but you have more clarity on where you want your site going - you need proof that visitors want it to go this way but that will come in time...
so good luck on your new journey...
Thanks Phil. I really did need to look at this site, and now, of course, my others too... lots of work ahead but I'm OK with that.
Thank you Gail for mentioning me in your post :) I am honoured :)
Congrats for your work! I love the new "Topics" page!!!!
I am in the same process of reviewing my website and oh, boy, lots of things to do. Like you, I have created my website couple of years back and I realise that I have to make improvements.
Good luck with your website cleaning :)
Best,
Maria
Thanks Maria. It's all just a learning journey. Glad you like the new look. I'm pleased with it too. Still have to improve internal links too so just making a list and starting at the top!
Good luck with your site too.
Gail
The restructuring looks good. Positive vibes your way that this will help you monetize your site ! M
With Faith, all things are possible. Restructuring takes time, but in the end, it is well worth the effort you place into it. I am doing it as well in an attempt to revive a non-performing site.
I'll see you in that same boat then, Michael! Just hope we not destined to drop the oars and drift off into that infernal 'creek'!
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Hi Gail,
Probably you moved on to some other things, but because I have stumbled on the same issue, I found some info in GSC and I thought you might be interested on.
I noticed that some of the pages are not, yet, indexed because they are in this stage "Crawled - currently not indexed". I started the validation process and I'm waiting the outcome.
I hope it helps 😀
Best,
Maria
Maria, you can, in the meantime, take time to evaluate your articles. Include an FAQ or table section with schema markup to make it more appealing to the bots. Just a suggestion.
Michael
I'm doing this Michael 😀 All my post have a FAQ section.
Thanks for your feedback :)
Best,
Maria
Great. I was just thinking about how you can make your articles more appealing to the bugs!
Hi Maria
Thanks for this. I've been using that button for a while. At first it seemed to work, but now I'm convinced that it has downgraded some of my articles because I keep hitting 'validate'. I've decided to leave things alone for a while and see if it picks up. I have been checking on Bing Webmaster Tools as well to see what's going on there and it's a little more optimistic. And I've really been focusing on social media to drive traffic. I figure that if Google sees I'm getting traffic through other sources, it may pay a bit more attention. But who knows really?!
Have a great day. Gail
Hi Gail,
You're welcome. Same here, I concentrate on social media to drive traffic. We'll see what will happen :)
Thank you, likewise, Gail 😀