Site Audit: Indexed Pages Issue
-
Over the last couple of months I've been working through some issues with a client. One of my starting points was doing a site Audit. I'm following a post written by Geoff Kenyon https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 .
One of the main issues of the site audit seems to be that when I run a "site:domain.com" query in Google my homepage isn't the first page listed in fact it isn't listed in this search when I go through all of the listings. I understand that it isn't required to have your homepage listed first when running this type of query, but I would prefer it.
Here are some things I've done
- I ran another query "info:homepage.com" and the home page is indexed by Google.
- When I run a branded search for the company name the home page does come up first.
- The current page that is showing up first in the "site:domain.com" listing is my blog index page.
- Several months back I redirected the index.php page to the root of the domain. Not sure if this is helping or hurting.
- In the sitemap I removed the index.php and left only the root domain as the page to index.
- Also all interior links are sent to the root, index.php has been eliminated from all internal links everything links to root
- The main site navigation does not refer to the "Home" page, but instead my logo is the link to the Home page.
- Should I noindex my blog/index.php page? This page is only a compilation of posts and does not have any original content instead it actually throws up duplicate content warnings.
Any help would be much appreciated. I apologize if this is a silly question, but I'm getting frustrated/ annoyed at the whole situation.
-
Thanks Seoman,
That was why I was wondering if I should noindex the blog index page. It is purely a listing of blog entries and not original content. It seems to throw up duplicate content issues and Google seems to give it the most page power on the site even though it is not my most important page.
I would want Google to still follow all of the links because those are the blog posts and the original content. I don't know if the noindex is the best choice but I think it at least it would tell Google "Hey guys the blog page is not my most important page. In fact it is just a compilation of posts"
I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, because I don't know if it will hurt me more than it is helping. I just don't know. If anyone has any other thoughts on the noindex of the blog index page which is not my home page feel free to drop me a line.
-
Apologies I'd slightly misunderstood your question, I see exactly what you mean now. I think this is purely down to the way Google associates the search intent and tries to deliver the most appropriate result.
The site parameter is obviously intended to help users find a specific item on the specified site, therefore if the blog has more content than the other pages there is more chance that it will have what the user is looking for hence Google will deliver that page out of preference.
Don't know for sure but just an assumption.As you said branded searches are fine, there certainly doesn't look to be any issues as far as I can see although I haven't done a full audit.
Would be interested to see what anyone else says but my gut feeling is there is nothing to be worried about, the main thing is you come up for your company name and search terms that you want.
Sorry hope that helps somewhat.
All the best
-
Feel free to take a look www.denverilluminations.com & www.denverilluminations.com/_blog/ .
Also the domain authority is 19 for the site I was looking at the individual page authorities. Thanks again Seoman.
-
Anyway you could let me have the two links and I can give them a quick look over?
Also bear in mind that DA isn't everything.
-
Seoman,
Thanks for the response. I appreciate any and all suggestions
- Blog page has a page authority of 1 out of 100 the home page has a page authority of 33 out of 100
- I looked at google's cache for pages and reviewed the text only version and everything is showing.
- Checked robots and I'm disallowing certain directories that I don't want indexed or crawled but those are all in order and I tested the robots.txt just to make sure it was written properly and it came back clean.
I don't believe noindexing my blog page is absolutely necessary, but I'm kind of wondering if Google thinks that it is my home page instead of my regular root directory? I know it sounds a little weird but I'm wondering if something is confusing the spiders. Thanks again for your time and thoughts.
-
Few quick thoughts come to mind (in order of priority)
- Blog page may have more authority than the homepage
- Could be a technical issue with the homepage (Maybe Google can't see anything there)
- Check your robots.txt to make sure it's not blocked (Sounds crazy but can happen)
I would strongly advise against noindexing unless it is absolutely necessary.
Personally I wouldn't be too worried about the homepage not showing although, I agree it's a good idea to know why. After all no customers are going to be using Google search parameters like site or info. They are going to be searching for what they want and expecting an answer on the page that Google provides them with.
Not sure if that helps or not but just a few thoughts.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
One locations page, or multiple pages?
Hi, I represent a franchisor who does all marketing- including local seo- for our franchisees. I've read a lot about local SEO and understand the basics, but have some remaining questions. 1- If our typical territories are quite large and encompass more than one major city, should we create multiple location pages for the same franchise owner? I believe the answer should be yes from an SEO stand point, but the problem is that most of our franchisees naturally just have one business address (their home). Since PO boxes and virtual offices aren't the way to go, what's the best course of action? And when I say major cities, I'm really talking about major cities (and not just small towns/boroughs). Can they just use a friend's/relative's address? 2- There's a lot of info out there about "locations pages," but it's not really clear whether or not you should really just have ONE page for each location, or several pages with different content? For instance, it looks like a lot of businesses are creating just one, "home-page" looking landing page for their individual locations, with everything from services to testimonials on just that one page. Is this preferred over creating several different local pages for that one location? The latter is what we currently do. From the user stand-point, it looks like each franchise location has it's own "mini website" on our main website. For instance, a landing page optimized for the local business name, a local services page, a project/photo gallery page, local review page, etc. It seems like a lot less work just building one landing page for each location, but is the payoff the same? I'm torn between the two strategies- is it really worth the extra work (in terms of traffic + local ranking) to build out the individual pages for the one location? Thanks Moz Community!
Local Website Optimization | | kimberleymeloserpa0 -
Hreflang errors "no return tag" sitemap.xml , and local search landing page with wrong Languages
Really need help , our website when search in google(US) will provide global page (keyword:asus/asus zenfone3). and search console also return "no return tags"another wear thing is when use googlebot crawl sitemap.xml googlebot cannot finish the file less than a quarterCan you please advise on what needs to be edited or changed to make sure my implementation is correct and not returning errors?
Local Website Optimization | | June01270 -
Do location pages boost the homepage?
Google has stated that businesses should spend time creating location pages for the various service areas that businesses operate in. What I want to know is, it is equally about boosting the relevance of the site as a whole, as well as ranking that individual page in the local area. Does Google take into account the fact that you have the location page and reward the homepage by favoring it more in that local area, or is it simply about ranking an individual page in each town/city?
Local Website Optimization | | OliverNeely2 -
Google still indexing home page even after with 301 - Ecommerce Website
Hi all,
Local Website Optimization | | David1986
We have a 301 redirect problem. Google seems to continue indexing a 301 redirect to our old home page. Even after months. We have a multiple language domain, with subfolders: www.example.com (ex page, now with a redirect to the right locale in the right country) www.example.com/it/home (canonical) www.example.com/en/home (canonical) www.example.com/es/home (canonical) www.example.com/fr/home (canonical) www.example.com/de/home (canonical) We still see the old page (www.example.com) in Google results, with old metadata in English and, just in some countries (i.e.: France), we see the correct result, the "new" homepage, www.example.com/fr/home in first position.
The real problem is that Google is still indexing and showing www.example.com as the "real" and "trusted" URL, even if we set: a 301 redirect the right language for every locale in Google Search Console a canonical tag to the locale url an hreflang tag inside the code a specific sitemap with hreflang tag specified for the new homepages Now our redirect process is the following (Italy example).
www.example.com -->301
www.example.com/en/home --> default version --->301
www.example.com/it/home --> 200 Every online tool, from Moz to Bot simulators see that there is a 301. So Correct. Google Search Console says that: on www.example.com there is a 301 (correct) in the internal link section of Google Search Console the www.example.com is still in first position with 34k links. Many of these links are cominig from property subdomains. Should we change those links inside those third level domain? From www.example.com to www.example.com/LOCALE/home? the www.example.com/LOCALE/home are the real home page, they give 200 code Do you know if there's a way to delete the old home page from Google results since this is 301? Do you think that, even after a 301 redirect, if Google sees too many internal links decides to ignore the 301? Thanks for your help! Davide0 -
How does duplicate content work when creating location specific pages?
In a bid to improve the visibility of my site on the Google SERP's, I am creating landing pages that were initially going to be used in some online advertising. I then thought it might be a good idea to improve the content on the pages so that they would perform better in localised searches. So I have a landing page designed specifically to promote what my business can do, and funnel the user in to requesting a quote from us. The main keyword phrase I am using is "website design london", and I will be creating a few more such as "website design birmingham", "website design leeds". The only thing that I've changed at the moment across all these pages is the location name, I haven't touched any of the USP's or the testimonial that I use. However, in both cases "website design XXX" doesn't show up in any of the USP's or testimonial. So my question is that when I have these pages built, and they're indexed, will I be penalised for this tactic?
Local Website Optimization | | mickburkesnr0 -
Targeting different cities for my service - Geo landing pages
I am breaking my head trying to figure out the best way around this... so we have an hvac company located in nyc. We want to also target all the different boroughs. We have a bunch of different major keywords hvac repair + location hvac service + location along with keywords such as air conditioning repair + location, heating service + location , and so on..... Should each borough + keyword have its own page? Or should we just have one page called brooklyn and in that page target all the different keywords like hvac, air conditining, and heating ? Also does it matter how we have it laid out? Domaim/hvac-repair-brooklyn or should I add domain/service-area/hvac. ..... Some of my competitors have the same content written on each borough page just moved around a little with different city names, how are they ranking so well? Isn't that duplicate? Would love to hear from some people with success in this local area. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | interstate0 -
How to target a site to only specific US states?
Hey Guys, Does anyone have experience or can point me to the right documentation about geo targeting possibilities for specific states in the US or specific areas in the world. Local SEO does not apply in my case, since my website is not a business nor have a physical address. My website offers information that is only relevant for specific states in the US, how can I leverage my I optimisation to gain more exposure in those specific states? I really appreciate any help. A
Local Website Optimization | | Mr.bfz0 -
How to target an established .co.uk site/blog to audiences in other English speaking countries - UAE, Singapore for example?
Excuse for the novice questions, but looking for help! 🙂 I have an established .co.uk website/blog for which I have established a good solid following in the UK over a good number of years. That said I have recently relocated to Dubai and so I am looking to target my English blog content to English speakers here and Singapore? While the language setting of my site is "en" is there anyway that I can change this to "en-ae" and "en-sg" for example to build a following in these markets? Or is my .co.uk TLD an issue that is going to hold me back from building following in these locations? I ask as I have just read the hreflang announcement from Google, but noticed in my Webmaster Tools that I get the following message: "Your site has no hreflang tags". Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | twofourseven0