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.
Site Audit Tools Not Picking Up Content Nor Does Google Cache
-
Hi Guys,
Got a site I am working with on the Wix platform. However site audit tools such as Screaming Frog, Ryte and even Moz's onpage crawler show the pages having no content, despite them having 200 words+. Fetching the site as Google clearly shows the rendered page with content, however when I look at the Google cached pages, they also show just blank pages.
I have had issues with nofollow, noindex on here, but it shows the meta tags correct, just 0 content.
What would you look to diagnose? I am guessing some rogue JS but why wasn't this picked up on the "fetch as Google".
-
@nezona
DM Fitrs
Facing issues with site audit tools and Google Cache not picking up content can be a technical puzzle to solve. It's crucial to address these challenges for a smoother online presence. Similarly, in managing our digital responsibilities, like checking PESCO online bills, reliability is key. Just as we troubleshoot website-related matters, staying on top of utility payments ensures a hassle-free experience. Navigate technical hiccups, both in website diagnostics and bill management, to maintain a seamlessly connected online routine. -
Hi Team,
I am facing problem with one of my website where google is caching the page when checked using cache: operator but displaying a 404 msg in the body of the cached version.
But when i check the same in 'text-only version' the complete content and element is visible to Google and also GSC shows the page with no issue and rendering is also fine.
The canonicals and robots are properly set with no issues on them.
Not able to figure out what is the problem. Experts advice would help! - topic:timeago_earlier,5 years
-
Hey Neil
Wow, we are really chuffed here at Effect Digital! I guess... we have a lot of combined experience - and we also try to give something back to the community (as well as making profit, obviously)
We didn't actually know how many people used the Moz Q&A forum until recently. It seemed like a good hub to demonstrate that, not all agency accounts have to exist to give shallow 1-liner replies from a position of complete ignorance (usually just so they can link spam the comments). Groups of people, **can **be insightful and 'to the point'
Again we're just really thrilled that you found our analysis to be useful. It also shows what goes into what we do. Most of the responses on here which are under-detailed have the potential to lead people down rabbit holes. Sometimes you just have to get into the thick of it right?
I think our email address is publicly listed on our profile page. Feel free to hit us up
-
My Friend,
That is some analysis you have done there!! and I am eternally greatful. It's people like you, who are clearly so passionate about SEO, that make our industry amazing!!
I am going to private message you a longer reply, later but i just wanted to publicly say thank you!!
Regards
Neil
-
Ok let's have a look here.
So this is the URL of the page you want me to look at:
I can immediately tell you that, from my end it doesn't look like Google has even cached this page at all:
- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nubalustrades.co.uk%2F (live)
- https://d.pr/i/DhmPEr.png (screenshot)
As you know I can't fetch someone else's web page as Google, but I do know Screaming Frog pretty well so let's give that a blast
First let's try a quick crawl with no client-side rendering enabled, see what that comes back with:
- https://d.pr/f/u3bifA.seospider (SF crawl file)
- https://d.pr/f/9TfNR5.xlsx (Excel spreadsheet output)
Seems as if, even without rendered crawling the words are being picked up:
Only the rows highlighted in green (the 'core' site URLs) should have a word count anyway. The other URLs are fragments and resources. They're scripts, stylesheets, images etc (none of which need copy).
Let's try a rendered crawl, see what we get:
- https://d.pr/f/ijprbx.seospider (SF crawl file)
- https://d.pr/f/c8ljoF.xlsx (Excel spreadsheet output)
Again - it seems as if the words are picked up, though oddly fewer are picked up with rendered crawling than with a simple AJAX source scrape:
That could easily be something to do with my time-out or render-wait settings though (that being said I did give a pretty generous 23 seconds so...)
In any case, it seems to me that the content is search readable in either event.
Let's look at the homepage specifically in more detail. Basically if content appears in "inspect element" but not in "view source", **that's **when you know you have a real problem
- view-source:https://www.nubalustrades.co.uk/ - (you can only open this link with Chrome browser, it's free to download from Google)
As you can see, lots of the content does indeed appear in the 'base' source code:
That's a good thing.
That being said, each piece of content seems to be replicated twice in the source code which is really weird and may be creating some content duplication issues, if Google's more simple crawl-bots aren't taking the time to analyse the source code correctly.
Go back here:
- view-source:https://www.nubalustrades.co.uk/ - (this link only works in Chrome!)
Ctrl+F to find the string of text: "issued by the British Standards Institution". Hit enter a few times. You'll see the page jump about.
On the one hand you have this, further up the page which looks alright:
On the other hand you have this further down which looks like a complete mess, embedded within some kind of script or something?
Line 6,212 of the source code is some gigantic JavaScript thing which has been in-lined (and don't get me started on how this site is over-using inline code in general, for CSS, JS - everything). No idea what it's for or does, might be deferred stuff to boost page speed without breaking the visuals or whatever (there are many clever tricks like that, but they make the source code a virtually unreadable mess for a human - let alone a programmed bot!)
What really concerns me is why such a simple page needs to have 6,250 lines of source code. That's mental!
What we all forget is that, whilst the crawl and fetch bots pull information quickly - Google's algorithms have to be run over the top of that source code and data (which is a much more complex affair)
Usually people think that normalizing the code-to-text ratio is a pointless SEO maneuver and in most cases, yes the return is vastly outweighed by the time taken to do it. But in your case it's actually very extreme:
Put your URL in and you'll get this:
I tried like 5-8 different tools and this was the most favorable result :')
It is clear that, even were the page successfully downloaded by Google, their algorithms may have trouble hunting out the nuggets of content within the vast, sprawling and unnecessary coding structure. My older colleagues had always warned me away from Wix... now I can see why, with my own two eyes
Ok. So we know that Google isn't bothering to cache the page, and that - despite the fact your content can 'technically' be crawled, it may be a marathon to do that and dig it out (especially for non-intelligent robots)
But is the content being indexed? Let's check:
- https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Anubalustrades.co.uk+%22issued+by+the+British+Standards+Institution%22
- https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&ei=q_MYXMj3EM_srgSNh6LYCQ&q=site%3Anubalustrades.co.uk+%22product+and+your+happy+with%22
- https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&ei=6vMYXPuLC4yYsAXAoKfAAg&q=site%3Anubalustrades.co.uk+%22Some+customers+like+to+have+more+than+one+balustrade%22
- https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&ei=CPQYXOmJFYu6tQXi8arwBA&q=site%3Anubalustrades.co.uk+%22installations+which+will+help+you+visualise+your+future+project%22
- https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&ei=KvQYXMyhC4LStAWopbqACg&q=site%3Anubalustrades.co.uk+%22Cleanly-designed%2C+high-quality+handrail+systems+combined+with+attention%22
Those are all special Google search queries, designed to specifically search for strings of content on your website from all the different, primary content boxes
Good news fella, it's all being found:
Let's make up an invalid text string and see what Google returns when text can't be found, to validate our findings thus-far:
If nothing is found you get this:
So I guess Google can find your content and is indexing your content
Phew, crisis over! Onto the next one...
-
Hi There,
This is the URL:-
https://www.nubalustrades.co.uk/
Be great if you could give me your opinion. I am thinking that this content isn't being indexed.
Regards
Neil
-
If you can share a link to the site I can probably diagnose it. It's probably that the content is within the modified (client-side rendered) source code, rather than the 'base' (non-modified) source code. Google fetches pages in multiple different ways, so using fetch as Google artificially makes it seem as if they always use exactly the same crawling technology. They don't.
Google 'can' crawl modified content. But they don't always do it, and they don't do it for everyone. Rendered crawling takes like... 10x longer than basic source scraping. Their mission is to index the web!
The fetch tool shows you their best-case scenario crawling methodology. Don't assume their indexation bots, which have a mountain to climb - will always be so favourable
-
Just an update on this one
Looks like it may be a problem with Wix
https://moz.com/community/q/wix-problem-with-on-page-optimization-picking-up-seo
I have another client who also uses Wix and they also show now content in screaming frog but worryingly their pages show in a cached version of the site. I know the "cache" isn't the best way to see what content is indexed and the fetch as Google is fine.
I just get the feeling something isn't right.
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
-
Removing a site from Google index with no index met tags
Hi there! I wanted to remove a duplicated site from the google index. I've read that you can do this by removing the URL from Google Search console and, although I can't find it in Google Search console, Google keeps on showing the site on SERPs. So I wanted to add a "no index" meta tag to the code of the site however I've only found out how to do this for individual pages, can you do the same for a entire site? How can I do it? Thank you for your help in advance! L
Technical SEO | Nov 29, 2019, 10:07 AM | Chris_Wright1 -
Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?
Hello, We have magento 2 extensions website mageants.com since 1 years google every 15 days cached my all pages but suddenly last 15 days my websites pages not cached by google showing me 404 error so go search console check error but din't find any error so I have cached manually fetch and render but still most of pages have same 404 error example page : - https://www.mageants.com/free-gift-for-magento-2.html error :- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN803IN804&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1569j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 so have any one solutions for this issues
Technical SEO | Sep 27, 2018, 3:05 AM | vikrantrathore0 -
Google and responsive content in display:none CSS
I’m building a WordPress site with Visual Composer and I’ve hit a point where I need to show a totally different section on a mobile compared to a desktop/tablet. My issue/question comes from the fact that both mobile and desktop rows will have the same content as well as H1/H2/H3 tags. From inspecting the elements I see the mobile only rows are hidden until the page size shrinks through being set to 'display: none' in the CSS (standard visual composer way of handling width & responsiveness) How will Google see this in terms of SEO? I don’t want to come across as if I’m cloaking text and H1 tags on the page (I have emailed the visual composer support but wanted to get an external opinion)
Technical SEO | Apr 11, 2015, 1:43 PM | shloy23-2945840 -
How to remove all sandbox test site link indexed by google?
When develop site, I have a test domain is sandbox.abc.com, this site contents are same as abc.com. But, now I search site:sandbox.abc.com and aware of content duplicate with main site abc.com My question is how to remove all this link from goolge. p/s: I have just add robots.txt to sandbox and disallow all pages. Thanks,
Technical SEO | May 21, 2013, 11:45 PM | JohnHuynh0 -
Google ranking my site abroad, how to stop?
Hi Mozzers, I have a UK based ecommerce site, that sells only to the UK. Over the last month Google has started ranking my site on foreign flavours of Google, so I keep getting traffic coming to my site from Europe, America and the far east that we could never sell to, and as a result bounce is going up and engagement is going down. They are definitely coming to the site from google searches that relate to my product type, but in regions I do not service. Is there a way to stop google doing this? I have the target set to UK in WMT, but is there anything else I can do? I worried about my UK ranking being damaged by an increasing overall bounce rate. Thanks
Technical SEO | Feb 27, 2013, 2:34 PM | FDFPres0 -
Why is my site jumping around in google search ?
Hi I've been trying to get my page up in google results and I was wondering why the constant fluctuation. For example, on one day the pages is nr. 26, the next day it's nr. 65 then jumps back on say 30 and then in a few more days it's going back to 50. What's the logic behind that ? Thanks Cezar
Technical SEO | Oct 16, 2012, 1:43 PM | sparts1 -
Javascript to manipulate Google's bounce rate and time on site?
I was referred to this "awesome" solution to high bounce rates. It is suppose to "fix" bounce rates and lower them through this simple script. When the bounce rate goes way down then rankings dramatically increase (interesting study but not my question). I don't know javascript but simply adding a script to the footer and watch everything fall into place seems a bit iffy to me. Can someone with experience in JS help me by explaining what this script does? I think it manipulates the reporting it does to GA but I'm not sure. It was supposed to be placed in the footer of the page and then sit back and watch the dollars fly in. 🙂
Technical SEO | Jun 27, 2012, 4:55 PM | BenRWoodard1 -
When is the last time Google crawled my site
How do I tell the last time Google crawled my site. I found out it is not the "Cache" which I had thought it was.
Technical SEO | Feb 16, 2012, 7:06 AM | digitalops0