Google Doesn't Like FREE
Last Update: Sep 20, 2023
Google Doesn't Like FREE
UPDATE Sep 20:
I accidentally did this again.
Published a blog post (intended to be the first of three) on how to get free traffic to your website. Something every website owner is interested in, right? Perfectly legitimate, right?
But it didn't get indexed.
The URL contained "free-traffic".
So I changed it to "organic-traffic".
And it was indexed a couple of hours later!
ORIGINAL POST:
I thought this was really interesting.
I always submit my blog posts to GSC as soon as they are published and they are normally indexed within a couple of hours.
Except for this one.
I submitted it and it hadn't been indexed 24 hours later.
Nor the day after. But...
Other blog posts submitted both before AND AFTER were being indexed as usual.
And, of course, I resubmitted it several times but without success. It wasn't even being crawled. It was as if Googlebot took one sniff at it, turned up its nose and crawled away.
What could be wrong?
The post was about how seniors could get into affiliate marketing for free or at low cost.
The title of the post included the word "free" so, as an experiment I edited it to replace "free" with "low cost" in both the blog post's title and URL.
Then resubmitted it to GSC and guess what?
Indexed within a couple of hours!
There was no change made to the body of the post at all, just the title and slug.
Make of that what you will.
Recent Comments
109
Good morning Phil,
Thanks for the interesting post. I don't know if I would have thought about doing that!
It's amazing what a change of word, can do in the title and slug etc! I wonder what would happen if you searched for a similar title in Google, using your original title, Phil? Would posts with free come up or not, I wonder!
Thank you for sharing.
Roy
It's a pleasure, Phil, it's an interesting topic!
I remember Internet marketers talking about who can know the mind of Google!
Have a great day.
Roy
It certainly does, Phil!
I hope you're doing well.
I have been away for a few days in Greece, so I am catching up with comments and messages etc!
All the best.
Roy
My daughter was recently in Greece (along with most other European countries). I hope you had a great time.
That's good, Phil, I'm sure she enjoyed herself! Everyone likes Greece, I never hear any bad comments about people's Greek holiday experiences!
My wife is from Greece, so it's nice to be able to get over there from the UK! It never fails to amaze me how I can be somewhere totally different in just 2 1/2 to 3 hours!
All the best.
Roy
Conversely, it amazes visitors here that they can drive for 30 hours and still be in Australia!
Maybe there is a problem with people trying to scam traffic by using that kinds of words, so they have protections that take more time to index. I may be wrong, just a thought.
@phil1944 Not all people are good-minded like us in WA. Smart and intelligent people know how to use information, but some are looking for a fast and easy way to earn and move on. Some things are protected. I sometimes wonder about Google's decisions because I feel pushed out. But after reading the rules, I understood it is a protection built over the decades.
But rapidly becoming out of date. For example, it's common practice to offer something free to someone signing up to your list. And that free gift needs to ne good quality as most people are more discerning. But Google treats it as if anything free must be a scam.
yes, you are right. People give free stuff all the time it is a marketing thing that raises awareness.
That sounds about right, Phil. Google definitely does not believe in the word "free" but goes along with "low cost." Funny how that works.
Myra 💜
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As a fairly new member here, can you tell me if I am supposed to be submitting my blog articles to the GSC as well? I just write them and press publish and thats it. If I am supposed to submit my posts to GSC can you direct me to somewhere where I can learn how to do that?
Your blog posts will get crawled by Google and Bing for indexing eventually anyway. Submitting to GSC speeds up the process. GSC (Google Search Console) the Easy Way Bing Webmaster Tools the Easy Way