undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Let your business shine with Listings AI
    Moz Local

    Let your business shine with Listings AI

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Blog posts not showing in serps for exact match title search

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Blog posts not showing in serps for exact match title search

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
8
1.6k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Ezpro9
    Ezpro9 last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 7:12 PM

    hi-

    my first client ranks #1 for the exact phrase of each blog post title

    the 2nd client doesnt rank anywhere when i search for the exact post title

    2nd client has robots.txt

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /wp-admin/
    Disallow: /wp-includes/

    so that shouldnt noindex any posts right?

    his site ranks for many kw's - but oddly none of his blog posts are anywhere to be found - i dont mean for a kw search - i mean for searching for the entire title he doesnt rank anywhere in first 5 pages for any of 6-7 posts i checked

    any idea what could cause this?

    thanks

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • KeriMorgret
      KeriMorgret last edited by Mar 26, 2013, 2:30 PM Mar 26, 2013, 2:30 PM

      Also check Google webmaster Tools. When doing a site: of your site, there are some odd-looking SERPs and at least one page has a message that the site might be compromised.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • ThompsonPaul
        ThompsonPaul @Taswirh last edited by Mar 25, 2013, 9:11 PM Mar 25, 2013, 9:11 PM

        Taswir, every page on your website has a meta-no-index. no-follow tag in the header. This explicitly tells the search engines NOT to include you pages/posts in the search results.

        On WordPress sites, this is usually caused by having the "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" box in the Reading section of the Settings checked. This is often set this way during development, then folks forget to remove it when the site goes live.

        Remove the check mark from that box and the engines should start indexing your pages within a day or so.

        If that box isn't checked, check for plugins that might have the same settings - like SEO plugins.

        That should do it.

        Paul

        [Included a screenshot to show where in the navigation to find the setting to change]

        03d13ae1bc

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Taswirh
          Taswirh @ThompsonPaul last edited by Mar 25, 2013, 6:29 PM Mar 25, 2013, 6:28 PM

          Hi Paul would you please also have a look on my blog http://www.thetopblogger.com as I am also facing the same problem. When I search with the URL at Google, the URL appears on top but when I check with "Exact Post Title" from my bog, this doesn't pull the related post from my blog.

          I checked more than 15 posts in this way and so far only 1 post ranked on #6 though the post title is exactly matching with my search.

          I am not a expert at Robots.txt but you can check my blog's robots.txt file too. http://www.thetopblogger.com/robots.txt

          Waiting for your reply Bro. Thank you.

          Regards

          Taswir

          ThompsonPaul 1 Reply Last reply Mar 25, 2013, 9:11 PM Reply Quote 0
          • topic:timeago_earlier,21 days
          • ThompsonPaul
            ThompsonPaul last edited by Mar 4, 2013, 5:55 PM Mar 4, 2013, 5:55 PM

            There are a number of issues that are likely causing indexing problems with this site, Eric, but I'm going to have to be up front with you.

            The site's business model is so completely against the search engines' terms of service, and is contributing to the low opinion so many in the public have of SEO, that regretfully I must decline to provide any further help with this particular site.

            This is my own judgement call and is not intended to reflect on you in any way.

            Paul

            Taswirh 1 Reply Last reply Mar 25, 2013, 6:28 PM Reply Quote 1
            • topic:timeago_earlier,18 days
            • William.Lau
              William.Lau @ThompsonPaul last edited by Feb 15, 2013, 1:10 AM Feb 15, 2013, 1:10 AM

              I must've gotten confused with wp-content. Thanks for clearing up Paul!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ThompsonPaul
                ThompsonPaul @William.Lau last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 10:32 PM Feb 14, 2013, 9:56 PM

                Wp-includes doesn't include any user content, William. The wp-content folder is where all user-uploaded images, pdfs etc are stored, so removing wp-includes from the robots.txt won' t have any effect on whether posts/pages are indexing or not.

                But even if such content were in that blocked directory, posts and pages are in the database and are output from their respective pseudo index pages, none of which are ni the /wp-includes directory.

                I'm just on my out the door, Eric, but if you want to PM me a few example URLs/pages, I'd be happy to have a look. Or of course you could post them publicly here for others to give you a hand, if you're comfortable with that. It's pretty hard to address problems like this without being able to research the actual pages.

                Paul

                William.Lau 1 Reply Last reply Feb 15, 2013, 1:10 AM Reply Quote 1
                • William.Lau
                  William.Lau last edited by Feb 14, 2013, 7:18 PM Feb 14, 2013, 7:18 PM

                  I'd troubleshoot the site by removing /wp-includes/ mainly because from what I understand images are pulled from that dir usually. Or a lot of content is from wp-includes.

                  Remove it and see if that helps.

                  I'd also check WMT and use Googlebot to fetch the site. Usually that works on getting things indexed quicker. I would also check WMT messages to see if there was any manual action taken on your client's account.

                  ThompsonPaul 1 Reply Last reply Feb 14, 2013, 9:56 PM Reply Quote -1
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  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.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Chris_Mc

                    Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag

                    title tags

                    Hi, We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming). We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here. Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue? We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/ I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed. <title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc> Chris

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 14, 2021, 12:43 PM | Chris_Mc
                    0
                  • varunrupal

                    Guest Post - What to reply when blogger ask for $$ to post a content?

                    Guest Post - What to reply when blogger ask for $$ to post a content? I did not want to pay $$ to post guest post.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 15, 2018, 5:23 PM | varunrupal
                    0
                  • wozniak65

                    How to get local search volumes?

                    Hi Guys, I want to get search volumes for "carpet cleaning" for certain areas in Sydney, Australia. I'm using this process: Choose to ‘Search for new keyword and ad group ideas’. Enter the main keywords regarding your product / service Remove any default country targeting Specify your chosen location (s) by targeting specific cities / regions Click to ‘Get ideas’ The problem is none of the areas, even popular ones (like north sydney, surry hills, newtown, manly) are appearing and Google keyword tool, no matches. Is there any other tools or sources of data i can use to get accurate search volumes for these areas? Any recommendations would be very much appreciated. Cheers

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 31, 2017, 6:29 AM | wozniak65
                    0
                  • Victoria_

                    Lazy Loading of Blog Posts and Crawl Depths

                    Hi Moz Fans, We are looking at our blog and improving the content as much as we can for SEO purposes, but we have hit a bit of a blank in terms of lazy loading implications and issues with crawl depths. We introduced lazy loading onto the blog home page to increase site speed initially and it works well with infinite scroll, but we were wondering whether this would cause any issues regarding SEO. A lot of the resources online seem to be conflicting and some are very outdated, so some clarification on what is best in terms of lazy loading and crawl depths for blogs, would be fantastic! I hope someone can help and give us some up to date insights - If you need anymore information, I'll reply ASAP

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 15, 2016, 4:37 AM | Victoria_
                    0
                  • Atomicx

                    Yoast seo title question

                    I was referred to this plugin and have found it to be the most irritating and poorly designed plugin in the world. I want to be able to set my titles without it changing my page headers as well. For instance - If I set my title to be "This is my article name | site name" it will make my H1 tag read the same. I do not want or desire this nonsense. Why would they think this is something wise? Why would I want my site name on every single H1 tag on my site? How can I fix this? I only want my title to be my title. I want my H1 tag to remain the post/page name that I define in wordpress.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 29, 2015, 7:06 PM | Atomicx
                    0
                  • Motava

                    Other domains hosted on same server showing up in SERP for 1st site's keywords

                    For the website in question, the first domain alphabetically on the shared hosting space, strange search results are appearing on the SERP for keywords associated with the site. Here is an example: A search for "unique company name" shows the results: www.uniquecompanyname.com as the top result. But on pages 2 and 3, we are getting results for the same content but for domains hosted on the same server. Here are some examples with the domain name replaced: UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE
                    ftp.DOMAIN2.com/?action=news&id=63‎
                    META DESCRIPTION TEXT UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
                    www.DOMAIN3.com/?action=news&id=120‎
                    META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
                    www.DOMAIN4.com/?action=news&id=120
                    META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 3
                    mail.DOMAIN5.com/?action=category&id=17‎
                    META DESCRIPTION TEXT3 ns5.DOMAIN6.com/?action=article&id=27‎‎ There are more but those are just some examples. These other domain names being listed are other customer domains on the same VPS shared server. When clicking the result the browser URL still shows the other customer domain name B but the content is usually the 404 page. The page title and meta description on that page is not displayed the same as on the SERP.As far as we can tell, this is the only domain this is occurring for.So far, no crawl errors detected in Webmaster Tools and moz crawl not completed yet.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 19, 2013, 11:05 PM | Motava
                    0
                  • SamCUK

                    Easy way to change wordpress category titles. Currently categories are appearing with the same title?!

                    I'm working on a wordpress adult dating review site and have started to set up categories for each of my main keywords. I have also started to add sub categories by county and town and so far have done so for the counties of 'Lincolnshire' and 'Derbyshire'. The problem is though that for each of my subcategories the page titles are appearing the same. For example: www.mysite.com/category/online-dating/lincolnshire/spalding (root category online dating) shows the title as 'Spalding'. www.mysite.com/category/adult-dating/lincolnshire/spalding also has the title 'Spalding' even though it's root category is different (adult dating). It's probably easier to go to http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com to see how it's set up. If you click in the category text in the top menu and navigate to dating/derbyshire/alfreton for example and then adult dating/derbyshire/alfreton you'll notice the page titles are the same. I use all in one SEO pack and have rewrite titles checked with category titles set to %category_title% | %blog_title%. I also use category SEO updater. In order to prevent duplicate content issues how can I simply make the title of each category category root title/category subtitle(county)/category subtitle 2(town). The title of each category page would then read for example Online Dating Lincolnshire Spalding.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 29, 2013, 10:14 AM | SamCUK
                    0
                  • MarieHaynes

                    Why should your title and H1 tag be different?

                    Is it dangerous to have your H1 tag and your title the exact same thing?  My thought was that it's not be the best use of space, but that it couldn't cause harm. What do you think?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 7, 2014, 4:34 PM | MarieHaynes
                    7

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.