Google Index Constantly Decreases Week over Week (for over 1 year now)
-
Hi,
I recently started working with two products (one is community driven content), the other is editorial content, but I've seen a strange pattern in both of them.
The Google Index constantly decreases week over week, for at least 1 year. Yes, the decrease increased
when the new Mobile version of Google came out, but it was still declining before that.
Has it ever happened to you? How did you find out what was wrong? How did you solve it?
What I want to do is take the sitemap and look for the urls in the index, to first determine which are the missing links. The problem though is that the sitemap is huge (6 M pages). Have you find out a solution on how to deal with such big index changes?
Cheers,
Andrei
-
Thanks EGOL. Makes sense.
-
My response to this is to build small, compact websites where multiple related items are sold on the same page.
If products are grouped wisely by keywords, you can still have a broad keyword reach from a smaller site. Those longer pages have more words, more images, more buy buttons and are respected better by Google. Thus they rank better than short skimply pages.
Big websites that struggle to hold pages in the index do not compete well.
A smaller site does not spread your power out amongst a large number of pages. The smaller the site the more competitive it will be against other larger websites of similar total linkstrength and authority.
-
Thanks EGOL for explaining. It makes sense. So Google discovers the urls via sitemap / internal link structure but then forgets about them because nobody reminds Google of them by linking to them.
I do understand that this is a common problem, so what set of tactics has worked so far for you in solving it?
-
If you have a website with six million pages, you will need a lot of inbound links to get all of those pages in to the index and held there. When Google discovers your pages they will index them but if spiders do not revisit again, google will forget them.
For a website to hold six million pages in the index, it would need hundreds of powerful inbound links to thousands of average inbound links from other websites to deliver enough spider action. These links must be permanent to maintain a flow of spiders into the website. If they are temporarily applied the flow of spiders will be cut off and google will forget about those pages.
Also needed would be a good linkage structure that channels the spiders deep into those millions of pages so that they will be forced to chew their way out through other pages.
Weak websites with too many pages are a common problem.
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
-
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
If I block a URL via the robots.txt - how long will it take for Google to stop indexing that URL?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gabriele_Layoutweb0 -
Why isn't Google indexing this site?
Hello, Moz Community My client's site hasn't been indexed by Google, although it was launched a couple of months ago. I've ran down the check points in this article https://moz.com/ugc/8-reasons-why-your-site-might-not-get-indexed without finding a reason why. Any sharp SEO-eyes out there who can spot this quickly? The url is: http://www.oldermann.no/ Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
INEVO, digital agency0 -
Weird Indexation Issue
On this webpage, we have an interactive graphic that allows users to click a navigational element and learn more about an anatomical part of the knee or a knee malady. For example, a user could click "Articular Cartilage" and they will land on this page: http://www.neocartimplant.com/knee-anatomy-maladies/anatomy/articular-cartilage The weird thing is whether you perform a Google Search for the above URL or for a string of text on that URL (i.e. "Articular cartilage is hyaline cartilage (as opposed to menisci, which consists of fibrocartilage) on the articular surfaces, or the ends, of bones. This thin, smooth tissue lines both joint surfaces where the bones come together to form the knee. ") the following page ranks: http://www.neocartimplant.com/anatmal/knee-anatomy-maladies/anatomy/articular-cartilage.php I have two questions: 1 - Any idea on how the Googlebot is getting to that page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davidangotti
2 - How should I get the Googlebot to index the correct page (http://www.neocartimplant.com/knee-anatomy-maladies/anatomy/articular-cartilage)? Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
Google indexed wrong pages of my website.
When I google site:www.ayurjeewan.com, after 8 pages, google shows Slider and shop pages. Which I don't want to be indexed. How can I get rid of these pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Wordpress blog in a subdirectory not being indexed by Google
HI MozzersIn my websites sitemap.xml, pages are listed, such as /blog/ and /blog/textile-fact-or-fiction-egyptian-cotton-explained/These pages are visible when you visit them in a browser and when you use the Google Webmaster tool - Fetch as Google to view them (see attachment), however they aren't being indexed in Google, not even the root directory for the blog (/blog/) is being indexed, and when we query:site: www.hilden.co.uk/blog/ It returns 0 results in Google.Also note that:The Wordpress installation is located at /blog/ which is a subdirectory of the main root directory which is managed by Magento. I'm wondering if this causing the problem.Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!AnthonyToTOHuj.png?1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tone_Agency0 -
Website is not indexed in Google, please help with suggestions
Our client website was removed from Google index. Anybody could recommend how to speed up process of re index: Webmaster tools done SM done (Twitter, FB) sitemap.xml done backlinks in process PPC done Robots.txt is fine Guys any recommendations are welcome, client is very unhappy. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThinkBDW0 -
Google & Bing not indexing a Joomla Site properly....
Can someone explain the following to me please. The background: I launched a new website - new domain with no history. I added the domain to my Bing webmaster tools account, verified the domain and submitted the XML sitemap at the same time. I added the domain to my Google analytics account and link webmaster tools and verified the domain - I was NOT asked to submit the sitemap or anything. The site has only 10 pages. The situation: The site shows up in bing when I search using site:www.domain.com - Pages indexed:- 1 (the home page) The site shows up in google when I search using site:www.domain.com - Pages indexed:- 30 Please note Google found 30 pages - the sitemap and site only has 10 pages - I have found out due to the way the site has been built that there are "hidden" pages i.e. A page displaying half of a page as it is made up using element in Joomla. My questions:- 1. Why does Bing find 1 page and Google find 30 - surely Bing should at least find the 10 pages of the site as it has the sitemap? (I suspect I know the answer but I want other peoples input). 2. Why does Google find these hidden elements - Whats the best way to sort this - controllnig the htaccess or robots.txt OR have the programmer look into how Joomla works more to stop this happening. 3. Any Joomla experts out there had the same experience with "hidden" pages showing when you type site:www.domain.com into Google. I will look forward to your input! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Can links indexed by google "link:" be bad? or this is like a good example by google
Can links indexed by google "link:" be bad? Or this is like a good example shown by google. We are cleaning our links from Penguin and dont know what to do with these ones. Some of them does not look quality.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bele0