Bing's indexed pages vs pages appearing in results
-
Hi all
We're trying to increase our efforts in ranking for our keywords on Bing, and I'm discovering a few unexpected challenges. Namely, Bing is reporting 16000+ pages have been crawled... yet a site:mywebsite.com search on Bing shows less than 1000 results.
I'm aware that Duane Forrester has said they don't want to show everything, only the best. If that's the case, what factors must we consider most to encourage Bing's engine to display most if not all of the pages the crawl on my site?
I have a few ideas of what may be turning Bing off so to speak (some duplicate content issues, 301 redirects due to URL structure updates), but if there's something in particular we should monitor and/or check, please let us know. We'd like to prioritize
Thanks!
-
Yep, if Bing Webmaster Tools doesn't show problems with the sitemap, I'd focus on the points I highlighted back in mid-June on this thread (make content robust, unique, and make sure text is in HTML).
Good luck,
Kristina
-
Hello again Kristina
Bing's showing 38,885 pages indexed... and I've noticed the amount of pages vary after clicking through several pages.
So I guess the problem isn't why aren't they indexing, but rather why aren't they showing all pages. I'd assume this is related to page quality (content, on-page ranking factors, etc)?
-
I haven't heard of Bing keeping historically submitted sitemaps and confusing them, although I know that they're very picky about the number of inaccuracies they find in a sitemap, so it's possible they keep the latest one around so they can refer to it if the current one seems to have holes.
That said - when you search for your site, are the same pages coming up on the first page? What about the second? Third? The number of pages that come up when you search for site:mysite.com are approximations and can vary even as you scroll through the results pages. The more important question is, how many pages does Bing say are indexed in Bing Webmaster Tools?
-
Just an update:
Bing reported a successful crawl after submitting a new one, then rejected it based on an error that it didn't describe. Took it down, made a change to URL itself (somehow the .gz extension wasn't there) and resubmitted on 7/7/13.
Since then, Bing has reported a successful crawl, then reported a successful crawl on 6/30/13 (7 days before submission?), then reported a failed crawl on 7/5/13 (2 days before submission?) and now today again reporting a successful crawl on 7/7/13.
So my question now is... does Bing keep record of historically submitted sitemaps and confuse them with new submissions of the same ones? I've yet to see Bing actually index what's in the sitemaps, as a site: operator search is still a daily fluctuation between 1200 and 3300 results, sometimes going up to 4400. But again, this is daily. Right now, searching site:roadtrippers.com on Bing reports 4,420 results. Later today, I imagine it'll be around 3,300 or 1,200.
Any suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated.
-
Good luck!
If these tips don't work, you should follow up here again, but include a little more information about your site. It's possible that Bing IS crawling all of your pages properly, but something about them is making Bing think that they aren't valuable enough to be in their indexes. I'd particularly look to see if:
- Content seems to be duplicate, either within your site or if it's duplicated elsewhere
- Content is extremely thin (less than 100 words on a page/no unique text above the fold)
- Content is unreadable by Bing: check the cached version of a page that's not indexed and make sure you can read the unique content
Hope this helps! I'm going to mark this question as "answered," only because if you have a follow up question, it'll probably be more specific now that you have more information, and I'd like all of that info to be included in the original question.
Best,
Kristina
-
Hey Kristina
It has not unfortunately.
Bing reports successful crawls, however it's not crawling it - at all.
After reading more about Bing's sitemap preferences, there are a few things left to try. I'm using this post on Bing's forums http://www.bing.com/blogs/webmaster/f/12248/t/659635.aspx#9602607 as a reference for now. We're going to make a temporary separate sitemap for Bing to test what is suggested in that link. Hopefully something sticks and we can make some progress going forward!
Brandon
-
Hi Brandon,
Just wanted to check in - did using 1 sitemap work?
Kristina
-
I believe I've found the solution - as recently as 2009, Bing was only crawling one sitemap per website. It also said Bing would only crawl the most recently submitted sitemap but it doesn't appear that was the case for our site.
So I've since removed the old sitemap and am waiting to see some evidence of our new sitemap being crawled and indexed.
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
-
Is anyone else's ranking jumping?
Rankings have been jumping across 3 of our websites since about 24 October. Is anyone seeing similar? For example ... jumps from position 5 to 20 on one day, then back to 5 for 3 days and then back to 20 for a day I'm trying to figure out if it's algorithm based or if my rank checker has gone mad. I can't replicate the same results if I search incognito or in a new browser, everything always looks stable in the SERPs if I do the search myself
Algorithm Updates | | Marketing_Today0 -
Ranking impact: Traffic in website pages vs sub directory vs sub domain
Hi all, I need clarification on this. Not every time website main pages rank, some times even pages from sub directories or sub domains like blogs or guides; especially for branded keywords. I just wonder what happens when so much traffic is generating in sub directories and sub domains just because of limited landing pages in main website. Will this traffic be counted as traffic in main website as per Google? Traffic increase in main website really an ranking factor? Will the "brand + topic" related keywords' traffic is more for a website; will it ranking improves even for "topic keywords"? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Optimizing for Lawyer vs Attorney Words
With Hummingbird update, my client's personal injury lawyer site went from very good positions for top terms in Google to oblivion. The site had primary landing pages for parallel terms such as "dog bite lawyer" and "dog bite attorney", among other. He does work in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, so we focus on key phrases for both "Philadelphia dog bite lawyer" and "Pennsylvania dog bite lawyer" etc. I've decided to investigate siloing more deeply, but am unsure whether Google now considers attorney searches to be the same as lawyer searches, which would mean we would silo for "Pennsylvania" and "Philadelphia" not "Attorney" and "Lawyer". Any real world experience in this anyone? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | JCDenver0 -
Please help explain this (Question about search results)
What's up SEO's, I'm new the SEO world and had a quick question. I just installed the MOZBAR and did a google search: "What is Google Voice" I attached an image of the results I received. Can someone explain how MacWorld's article outranked Google's when both Google's Page Authority and Domain Authority are so much stronger than MacWorlds. This is in addition to google having many more links. This is basic, but any insight will be very helpful. Thanks guys! [Screen%20Shot%202014-02-18%20at%206.08.15%20PM.png](file:///Users/jackfarrell/Desktop/Screen%20Shot%202014-02-18%20at%206.08.15%20PM.png)
Algorithm Updates | | Petbrosia1 -
How Do I Optimize with Google's Video Search?
Hi everyone, I am looking here https://developers.google.com/webmasters/videosearch/schema and I don't fully understand. Could someone please explain, step by step, what I have to do to optimize for Google video search? I.e. Step 1 do this Step 2 do this. I don't fully understand Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Website dropping from page 1google uk
Hi all, Firstly let me stress I am not really SEO minded, I know the very basics and that is about it. I am a driving instructor in the UK and have had my website (Wordpress) on page 1 for about 3 years now round the position 3 mark but for the last few months it has been dropping and is now right at the bottom of page 1 so no doubt a few more days and it will vanish completely from page 1 of google.co.uk . I was wondering if someone could just have a quick look at the page to see if they can see anything obvious that wouldn't be seen by me! The search term is " Driving Lessons Worcester " and the page that has always show on page 1 of google is .. http://www.passlee.com/driving-lessons-worcester.html I also had another site on page 1 for about 2 years which was www.drivinglessonsworcester.com this has also vanished to page 5 over the last 3 to 4 months. What really hurts is I made a website for another local instructor using WP and with similar setup to mine and that is now showing as No.1 on page 1 of google.co.uk!! So how is it the website I did for him is doing amazing yet mine is dieing a death when they are setup the same way but obviously different content! As I said I barely know the basics , I am sure a lot of you are thinking " Just go research " which I know I should and no doubt will, but I just wanted someone to have a very quick look to see if there was anything obvious! Kind Regards Lee Francis
Algorithm Updates | | germinus0 -
Bing Vs Google SERP
I realize the major search engines use different criteria but I don't see how - for the same home page keyword - my site could rank #3 on page 1 for a Bing search and be off the charts (Page 15+)? on Google. Has Google gone so far off the charts with their new Penguins and Pandas so as to be in a different universe? Seems Google is now extremely over-weighting big sites like Wikipedia, WebMD, eHow, etc. and in doing so vastly reducing the diversity of results shown. I am commonly seeing different pages of the same website appear multiple times in the first 2-3 pages of Google results. What's the point?
Algorithm Updates | | veezer0 -
Why is my client's website, ranking higher for serps on bing and yahoo for competitive keywords
My client is in the competitive Private jet charter space. Why is my client's website, ranking higher for serps on bing and yahoo for competitive keywords phrases? like Private jet charter as an example. http://www.jetcharter.com/
Algorithm Updates | | AndrewSEO0