Why Your Website Might Not Get Indexed

Getting new websites indexed by Google can be challenging—especially those with technical, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or content quality issues. We’ve outlined potential reasons Google may not index your site. Sometimes, you can fix these issues quickly. However, sometimes you need to dig deeper to find the real reasons Google isn’t indexing all your web pages.

Why Google Isn’t Indexing Your Site

The first step in fixing an indexing issue is to diagnose it. The list below is organized to help you find the cause and fix it.

1. Indexing Your Site Under a www- or Non-www Domain

From a technical standpoint, www is a subdomain. For example, http://sample.com is not the same as http://www.sample.com. Add both sites to your GWT account and ensure both are indexed. Set your preferred domain and verify ownership of both. This is one of the Top 18 Technical Errors Keeping Your Pages Out of Google.

2. Your Site Not Found by Google?

If you improve your website’s crawlability and indexability, you’re on the right track. New sites often run into this problem. Even after giving it a few days, if Google still hasn’t indexed your website, make sure your sitemap is uploaded and working correctly. If you haven’t created or submitted a sitemap, it could be entirely your problem. You can also ask Google to crawl and fetch your site. Now follow Google’s instructions on how to do that:

• On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want;
• On the Dashboard, under Crawl, click Fetch as Google;
• In the text box, type the path to the page you want to check;
• It’s advisable to select dropdown in the Desktop, another type of page can be chosen, but currently, our web search box is only accepting submission;
• Google will fetch the requested URL when you click Fetch. For the status to be updated, 10 or 15 minutes may have elapsed;
• Once a Fetch status of “Successful” appears on the screen, submit to index should be clicked, and then the following needs to be connected:
• a) Select URL and click submit if you want to submit the individual URL to Google’s index. This way up to 500 URLs can be submitted in a week;
• b) Click URL and all linked pages to introduce the URL and all pages linked from it. You can submit up to 10 of these requests per month.
  

  3. Missing a sitemap.xml

  Every website must have a sitemap.xml, which is simply a list of directions that Google should follow to index your website. Google’s sitemap policy is easy to read and quick to create. Search Engine Land thoroughly explains how to manage Sitemap XML with Google Search Console. If you are experiencing indexation issues anywhere on your site, revise and resubmit your sitemap.xml to ensure it works as planned.

  4. Crawl Errors

  In some cases, Google doesn’t index pages on your site simply because it cannot crawl them. Even if it doesn’t crawl them, it can still see them.

  If Google can’t crawl or index your page for some reason, it will appear in the “Error” report. Note that more than 1K affected URLs are listed. Of these, only a 1K sample will be available here—not necessarily the specific URL the user is looking for. If your page appears in one of these reports, you can identify the issue by clicking the URL and selecting “Inspect URL.”

  5. Lots of Duplicate Content

  Too much duplicate content on a site can confuse search engines. It might cause them to stop indexing your site. If the same content appears on multiple URLs on your site, you have duplicate content issues. Canonicalizing pages can also help. It would help to stay extra cautious. Confused canonicalization issues on some websites often prevent indexation. It’s time you understood duplicate content and its serious impact on websites.

  6. Turning on Your Privacy Settings

If you have a WordPress site, remember that privacy settings can be turned on accidentally. If so, go to Admin → Settings → Privacy to check and fix it right away.

If you want to know “Why Your Website Might Not Get Indexed,” this post is for you.

7. The Site Blocked by .htaccess?

Your .htaccess file allows it to be available on the World Wide Web. It is part of your website’s existence on the server. The .htaccess file, written for Apache, is extremely handy and valuable, but it can also block crawlers and prevent your site from being indexed.

8. NOINDEX in the Meta Tag

It’s another way of telling robots, “No,” so they don’t index it. Indeed, it is one of the issues that will probably make you yell, and I can’t believe I didn’t see that!

It’s better to quote Barry Schwartz, and let’s have a look at what he wrote about it in the SEO Roundtable:

Heck, I see it all the time in the forums. Large Fortune 500 companies have called me with SEO issues. I’ve seen it more than once, and they have a noindex tag on their home page causing the issue. Sometimes they are hard to spot due to redirects, so use an HTTP header checker tool to verify before the redirects. But don’t overlook the obvious; check that first.

Remove this line of code, and you’ll be back in the index in no time.

9. AJAX/JavaScript Issues

Google doesn’t ignore JavaScript and AJAX. Google does index them, but these languages aren’t as straightforward as HTML. So, misconfiguring how these pages execute can keep Google from indexing them.

10. Lengthy Load Time

Google doesn’t like it if your site takes longer than expected to load. If the crawler encounters interminable load times, Google may not index your site at all. These are the reasons “Why Your Website Might Not Get Indexed.”

11. Check Your robots.txt File

Most websites need a robots.txt file that tells search engines where they can and can’t go on your site. Google won’t visit your pages if you block your website and prevent it from crawling specific URLs, which usually keeps them from showing up in search results.

If you submit your sitemap via Google Search Console, you will get alerts about related issues. Keep in mind that these alerts depend solely on Google bots’ attempts to crawl your URLs. Another way to check is to see whether your robots.txt file blocks your pages. Type yourwebsite.com/robots.txt into your browser. The needful will be done.

12. Lack of High-Quality Backlinks

If you don’t have high-quality backlinks, it may be one reason Google isn’t indexing your website. Hundreds of factors play into Google’s algorithm, and no one knows all the details of Google’s ranking system for sure. However, the number of high-quality backlinks can be a decisive factor and can seriously affect your rankings. Don’t forget this essential element: understand do-follow and no-follow backlinks in the SEO context to get the most benefit.

13. Your Website Is Lacking Authority

Your domain authority, or domain rating, is closely tied to building high-quality links. Therefore, the more high-quality links you have, the higher your authority will be. It should be kept in mind that different tools measure domain rating differently, so the number can vary depending on the data. Several domain SEO tools are readily available. With these, you can compare your score with competitors to better understand your quality backlinks. They may have, and how you should make your presence felt with the growth needed for your domain authority.

14. Your Web Page Not Aligning with “Search Intent”

No one can deny that Google’s mission is to provide users with the most valuable and relevant results. From this point of view, it’s essential to align your content and keyword strategy with what your target audience wants to view.

You must provide unique, valuable content that is interesting enough to help solve your audience’s problems. Content that isn’t strong enough to help users find what they are looking for won’t rank on the first pages of Google.

15. Duplicated Content on Your Website

When the same or similar web page is accessible at different URLs, it indicates duplicate content. As it takes up unnecessary space in its index, Google doesn’t index duplicate content. In such cases, Google usually indexes the version of the page set as canonical. The canonical tag helps prevent search engines from finding certain pages as duplicate content. You must avoid duplicate content that can harm your website in multiple ways. When you set a canonical tag, search engines know which URL version to display in search results. Its consequences can prove detrimental.

16. DNS or Connectivity Failures

Wondering why Google might not index your website? Many factors can prevent Googlebot from indexing your website. Server errors might prevent Googlebot from reaching your site.

17. Outdated Domain History

Do you want to know the real reasons search engines are ignoring your pages? Outdated domain history could be one reason Google refuses to index your website. Fix these indexing errors before you lose another visitor.

18. Poor Internal Linking

Poor internal linking is a technical error that can keep your web pages out of Google. Orphan pages have no internal links pointing to them. To fix the issue, learn about link juice and its benefits.

Conclusion: Indexing Red Flags Every Webmaster Needs to Check

A cornerstone of a good SEO strategy is getting the website indexed so it can fulfill its purpose. If your website or some pages aren’t getting indexed, you need a timely solution and the right strategies. Ignoring this crucial element can harm your website. Get these technical factors resolved for consistent, well-planned website indexing that will help increase traffic.

If you are looking for indexing red flags every webmaster needs to check today, let us know. We will set up a call with our technical SEO team to resolve your issues.

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