Why is Google not indexing my website in search results?
You spend hours and hours writing the most perfect website copy and optimizing it for SEO. Yet, frustratingly, Google doesn’t even notice or even list your site. There could be multiple reasons Google is not indexing a website in search results.
Your site is too new or not popular enough
If your website is new or does not have a lot of incoming links or visitors, Google may not see it as a trustworthy source. It may take some time for your website to gain credibility and start appearing in search results.
One way to increase your website’s credibility is by getting high-quality backlinks from other websites in your industry. Another way is to offer guest posts to other authority sites.
You have low domain authority
Scored from 1 to 100, domain authority is a measure of rank ability on search engines on search engines. The higher your domain authority, the more likely it is for your website to appear at the top of search results.
To improve your domain authority, focus on creating high-quality content. Building your content around related and relevant keywords is also important for Google to understand what your blog site is about.
Your website is not mobile-friendly
Google now prioritizes blogs that are optimized for mobile devices in its search results. Your blog should have a responsive design and easy navigation for mobile users.
To check if your website is mobile-friendly, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. The tool will also provide suggestions for improvements to make your website more accessible for mobile users.
You have duplicate or thin content
Search engines like Google want to provide their users with the most relevant and unique content. If your blog posts have duplicate or thin (lacking in substance) content, they may not appear in search results.
Since Google analyzes content across your whole site, make sure to regularly check for duplicate content and update any old or irrelevant blog posts with fresh, original content. Any posts that cannot be effectively fixed should be removed to avoid any further SEO damage.
Slow-loading site
Google strives to give users the best experience possible. As a part of that mandate, Google favors blogs that load clean and fast, with slow-moving, inefficient pages falling into the ranking abyss.
A slow-loading blog site can happen if there is simply too much content for a web browser to handle. Another speed stealer is an old server struggling to keep up with the data. Check your blog for large images and videos and then optimize or remove them to improve load time.
No sitemap
Google uses a sitemap to quickly discover all the content on your blog. A sitemap is a file that contains information about all the different pages on a blog site and how they are all connected. Without a sitemap for Google to follow, it will be more difficult for Google to find some blog pages, leaving them unindexed and nowhere to be found.
The solution is to create and submit a sitemap to Google Search Console. While Google can discover and index blog posts naturally, giving Google a sitemap will accelerate the process, especially if you have a lot of blog posts.
Not enough fresh content is added to your blog
Without a doubt, bloggers know Google loves fresh, well-written content. A site that is rarely updated with new articles gets left behind by Google’s little spiders.
To counteract and compete effectively, increase the frequency of fresh content with engaging articles or news-worthy updates. This will signal to Google that your site is active and up to date.
Not user-friendly
While SEO is important to get Google’s attention, a user-friendly blog is just as crucial. If your blog is easy to navigate and frustration-free, Google will happily send visitors your way.
An easy-to-read font makes a site more user-friendly. Too many ads that make your blog difficult to read, can hurt your rankings as well.
By keeping these factors in mind, you can improve the chances of Google indexing your website and boosting its search ranking. With some time and effort, Google will send its crawlers to your site on a regular basis, bringing you more and more traffic for years to come.