Google has deindexed a page it thinks is set to 'noindex', but is in fact still set to 'index'
-
A page on our WordPress powered website has had an error message thrown up in GSC to say it is included in the sitemap but set to 'noindex'. The page has also been removed from Google's search results.
Page is https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgages/how-to-get-a-mortgage-with-bad-credit/
Looking at the page code, plus using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs crawlers, the page is very clearly still set to 'index'. The SEO plugin we use has not been changed to 'noindex' the page.
I have asked for it to be reindexed via GSC but I'm concerned why Google thinks this page was asked to be noindexed.
Can anyone help with this one? Has anyone seen this before, been hit with this recently, got any advice...?
-
@effectdigital and @jasongmcmahon did you ever get to the bottom of this and if so what caused it and what was the long term fix, as GSC and Google seem to behaving in a peculiar way?
We had a similar issue with this page: https://www.simplyadverse.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgage, but after several cache clears and re-indexing/fix requests it indexed fine.
We now have a page on another similar site that is stubbornly refusing to index. Its a new site and other than the a simple domain homepage, all pages when under development had "noindex " on them.
Several pages on the site on launch behaved like this with GSC saying the page was marked as "noindex" but submitted in the sitemap, but when you check to see if indexing was possible GSC says its fine (we'd removed noindex and setup the sitemap) . All crawling tools say its fine, but this page wont index despite repeated attempts over a couple of weeks, all other pages are now fine, but this page won't index: https://simplysl.co.uk/buy-to-let/
Other than they're all mortgage related sites/pages, I can't fathom why one page would be troublesome and all others index OK despite having the same setup and indexing process, any ideas?
-
Thanks, I'll take a look
-
Thanks for going into so much detail, much appreciated.
We've asked Google to reindex it and 'validate the fix', even though we can't find anything to fix!
-
Hi there, check that caching isn; the issues at server & CMS levels. Other than that reindex the page via GSC
-
This is really weird. Really really weird!
As you say, your site's source code seems to confirm that it is set to index. If we look here, we can plainly see that the coding syntax for a no-index directive is "noindex" (all one word).
Let's look at your source code:
Yep, everything seems fine there! But what if a script is modifying your source code and including the directive - and Google's picking up on that?
If we look at the modified source code which I rendered and saved to a file here:
... we can see, there are no problems here either:
Wow - that's really unhelpful!
Let's see what happens if we specifically search Google's live index for the URL:
Interestingly, when we search Google's index for this page, we get this page returned instead.
It makes sense that Google would return that URL if it couldn't return the main URL, as one is nested inside of the other. If everything was healthy, we'd see Google listing both URLs instead of just one of them. Even if you edit my index query to remove the trailing slash, you still only get the nested URL (not the one you want to be showing, which is at a slightly higher-up level)
Another thought I had was, hmm maybe this is a canonical tag gone rogue. That bore no fruit either, as this page (which you want to index, yet won't) canonicals to this page - and both of those URLs are exactly the same. As such, it's obvious that we can't blame the canonical tag either! I even viewed the modified source to see if it got altered, no dice (the canonical tag is just fine)
Maybe the XML file is telling Google not to index the URL?
Nope - that's fine too! No problems there...
Could the robots.txt file be interfering?
No! Darn it, that's not the problem
I know that a no-index or blocking directive can also be sent through the HTTP header (usually via X-robots). Let's check the response header of your URL out:
Nothing there that really raises my eyebrow. This is enabled and set to block, but to be honest that shouldn't affect Google's crawling at all. Anyone correct me if I am wrong, but defending your site against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks doesn't impede crawling right?
Fudge it. Let's fling it through Google's Page-Speed Insights tool. Usually that will tell you if something is being blocked and why...
Nothing useful still!
Google's mobile friendly tool gives us some, semi-interesting information:
But it doesn't say the page can't be loaded. It only says some resources which the page pulls in can't be loaded! And guess what? They're all external things on other websites (other than a few theme related bits, but nothing IMO that should stop the whole page loading).
Let's try DeepCrawl's indexability checker (they make amazing software by the way... expensive though):
Sir... there is NO GOOD REASON why your URL shouldn't be indexed. I am 99.9% certain you have encountered a legit Google bug. Post about it here. Only Google can help you at this juncture
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
-
No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag
Pages on my site show No: 'noindex' detected in 'robots' meta tag. However, when I inspect the pages html, it does not show noindex. In fact, it shows index, follow. Majority of pages show the error and are not indexed by Google...Not sure why this is happening. The page below in search console shows the error above...
Technical SEO | | Sean_White_Consult0 -
What to do when Google automatically replaces the page title.
Hello Friends, Might you all are aware of the scenario when Google auto generates the snippets for search results. But nowadays I am seeing some changes like google is showing some specific words in the last of search results title for every page of my website. It looks Google is treating those words as the brand name. I have tried many things to solve this but unfortunately, nothing works for this. Does anyone see the same changes? Can anybody help me out with this or suggest me the reasons behind this.
Technical SEO | | Shalusingh1 -
Google how deal with licensed content when this placed on vendor & client's website too. Will Google penalize the client's site for this ?
One of my client bought licensed content from top vendor of Health Industry. This same content is on the vendor's website & my client's site also but on my site there is a link back to vendor is placed which clearly tells to anyone that this is a licensed content & we bought from this vendor. My client bought paid top quality content for best source of industry but at this same this is placed on vendor's website also. Will Google penalize my client's website for this ? Niche is HEALTH
Technical SEO | | sourabhrana1 -
Is there a way to index important pages manually or to make sure a certain page will get indexed in a short period of time??
Hi There! The problem I'm having is that certain pages are waiting already three months to be indexed. They even have several backlinks. Is it normal to have to wait more than three months before these pages get an indexation? Is there anything i can do to make sure these page will get an indexation soon? Greetings Bob
Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Is There Google 6th page penalty?
My site have keyword domain but my page doesnt up or down at 6th page on search results. And my main page doesnt show 6th page too my alt pages. So what can i do for this penaly? Thanks for your help
Technical SEO | | iddaasonuclari0 -
Google Page speed
I get the following advice from Google page speed: Suggestions for this page The following resources have identical contents, but are served from different URLs. Serve these resources from a consistent URL to save 1 request(s) and 77.1KiB. http://www.irishnews.com/ http://www.irishnews.com/index.aspx I'm not sure how to fix this the default page is http://www.irishnews.com/index.aspx, anybody know what need to be done please advise. thanks
Technical SEO | | Liammcmullen0 -
Url's don't want to show up in google. Please help?
Hi Mozfans 🙂 I'm doing a sitescan for a new client. http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/ It's a dutch jobsite. Now the problem is here: The url http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/vacatures/ is in google.
Technical SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
On the same page there are jobs (scroll down) with a followed link.
To a url like this: http://www.vacatures.tuinbouw.nl/vacatures/722/productie+medewerker+paprika+teelt/ The problem is that the second url don't show up in google. When i try to make a sitemap with Gsitecrawler the second url isn't in de sitemap.. :S What am i doing wrong? Thanks!0 -
Dynamically-generated .PDF files, instead of normal pages, indexed by and ranking in Google
Hi, I come across a tough problem. I am working on an online-store website which contains the functionlaity of viewing products details in .PDF format (by the way, the website is built on Joomla CMS), now when I search my site's name in Google, the SERP simply displays my .PDF files in the first couple positions (shown in normal .PDF files format: [PDF]...)and I cannot find the normal pages there on SERP #1 unless I search the full site domain in Google. I really don't want this! Would you please tell me how to figure the problem out and solve it. I can actually remove the corresponding component (Virtuemart) that are in charge of generating the .PDF files. Now I am trying to redirect all the .PDF pages ranking in Google to a 404 page and remove the functionality, I plan to regenerate a sitemap of my site and submit it to Google, will it be working for me? I really appreciate that if you could help solve this problem. Thanks very much. Sincerely SEOmoz Pro Member
Technical SEO | | fugu0