Google Webmaster Tools -> Sitemap suddent "indexed" drop
-
Hello MOZ,
We had an massive SEO drop in June due to unknown reasons and we have been trying to recover since then.
I've just noticed this yesterday and I'm worried. See: http://imgur.com/xv2QgCQ
Could anyone help by explaining what would cause this sudden drop and what does this drop translates to exactly?
What is strange is that our index status is still strong at 310 pages, no drop there: http://imgur.com/a1sRAKo
And when I do search on google site:globecar.com everything seems normal see: http://imgur.com/O7vPkqu
Thanks,
-
I found the problem guys, I had made a change in the sitemap that messed up everything. It's all back to normal now. Thanks guys for your support!
-
That is what I was looking for, thank you.
-
I think this is the information everyone is looking for, https://www.seroundtable.com/google-sitemap-index-count-drop-is-a-bug-20608.html It seems there is a bug in GWT with sitemaps.
-
I am having this exact problem, it started on July 14th. For some reason my indexed has dropped even though I have no sitemap errors. Have you received any answers?
-
Totally agree with Andy.
Make sure your XML sitemaps don't contain any errors, and if something like this happens you should closely watch your organic traffic as well. If there's a big drop in your organic traffic you can start worrying
-
That isn't an 'SEO' drop as such, this is related to your sitemap errors. Doing a site: wont show the same numbers as you see as being shown on the sitemap itself.
Rebuild your sitemap, correct the errors and then see what state it is in.
-Andy
-
Hey,
First of all you don't need to worry about. Be calm and find out the root cause.
Usually when this happen, we investigate things in bit depth. I can't give you the accurate answer before seeing the details. Please checkout the below pointers and let us know your thoughts.
- Your marketing activities followed the same pace? May be, your competitors outranked you by producing more valuable links and pages.
- Did you check the analytics? It'd be better for us if you could share the analytics traffic graph.
- Have you done any major changes to your website in terms of design, technical things, content, URLs, shift to another platform etc?
- Have you just recovered from any penalty in recent past? Check your WMT again.
- Did you agency/team build new links in this time period? If yes, examine them.
Find out the best possible answer of above points and I'm sure you will get the clearer picture of this mishap.
Hope this helps!
Umar
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
-
Does redirecting from a "bad" domain "infect" the new domain?
Hi all, So a complicated question that requires a little background. I bought unseenjapan.com to serve as a legitimate news site about a year ago. Social media and content growth has been good. Unfortunately, one thing I didn't realize when I bought this domain was that it used to be a porn site. I've managed to muck out some of the damage already - primarily, I got major vendors like Macafee and OpenDNS to remove the "porn" categorization, which has unblocked the site at most schools & locations w/ public wifi. The sticky bit, however, is Google. Google has the domain filtered under SafeSearch, which means we're losing - and will continue to lose - a ton of organic traffic. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this, and appeal the decision. Unfortunately, Google's Reconsideration Request form currently doesn't work unless your site has an existing manual action against it (mine does not). I've also heard such requests, even if I did figure out how to make them, often just get ignored for months on end. Now, I have a back up plan. I've registered unseen-japan.com, and I could just move my domain over to the new domain if I can't get this issue resolved. It would allow me to be on a domain with a clean history while not having to change my brand. But if I do that, and I set up 301 redirects from the former domain, will it simply cause the new domain to be perceived as an "adult" domain by Google? I.e., will the former URL's bad reputation carry over to the new one? I haven't made a decision one way or the other yet, so any insights are appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gaiaslastlaugh0 -
Google Search Console - Indexed Pages
I am performing a site audit and looking at the "Index Status Report" in GSC. This shows a total of 17 URLs have been indexed. However when I look at the Sitemap report in GSC it shows 9,000 pages indexed. Also, when I perform a site: search on Google I get 24,000 results. Can anyone help me to explain these anomalies?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | richdan0 -
The "webmaster" disallowed all ROBOTS to fight spam! Help!!
One of the companies I do work for has a magento site. I am simply the SEO guy and they work the website through some developers who hold access to their systems VERY tightly. Using Google Webmaster Tools I saw that the robots.txt file was blocking ALL robots. I immediately e-mailed out and received a long reply about foreign robots and scrappers slowing down the website. They told me I would have to provide a list of only the good robots to allow in robots.txt. Please correct me if I'm wrong.. but isn't Robots.txt optional?? Won't a bad scrapper or bot still bog down the site? Shouldn't that be handled in httaccess or something different? I'm not new to SEO but I'm sure some of you who have been around longer have run into something like this and could provide some suggestions or resources I could use to plead my case! If I'm wrong.. please help me understand how we can meet both needs of allowing bots to visit the site but prevent the 'bad' ones. Their claim is the site is bombarded by tons and tons of bots that have slowed down performance. Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JoshuaLindley0 -
Is there a tool to find out if a URL has been deemed "SPAM" by GOOGLE
I am currently doing a link audit on one of my sites and I am coming across some links that appear to be spam. Is there a tool that I can plug their URL into to see if they have been deemed spam by GOOGLE?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mozd0 -
Is it better to not allow Google to index my Tumblr Blog?
Currently using a subdomain for my blog via Tumblr In my seo reports I see alot of errors. Mostly from the Tumblr blog. Made change so there are unique titles and tags. Too many errors I am wondering if it is best to just not allow it to be indexed via tumblr control panel. It certainly is doing a great job with engagement and social network follows, but i'm starting to wonder if and how much it is penalizing my domain.. Appreciate your input.. By the way this theme is not flash for the content very basic single a theme...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise0 -
Malicious site pointed A-Record to my IP, Google Indexed
Hello All, I launched my site on May 1 and as it turns out, another domain was pointing it's A-Record to my IP. This site is coming up as malicious, but worst of all, it's ranking on keywords for my business objectives with my content and metadata, therefore I'm losing traffic. I've had the domain host remove the incorrect A-Record and I've submitted numerous malware reports to Google, and attempted to request removal of this site from the index. I've resubmitted my sitemap, but it seems as though this offending domain is still being indexed more thoroughly than my legitimate domain. Can anyone offer any advice? Anything would be greatly appreciated! Best regards, Doug
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FranGen0 -
Using "Read More" buttons as a tool to cram in Content
Hi Mozzers! Let's say our website is clean, professional, and minimalistic. Can we use a "read more" button that will expand the text on the page to increase the amount of content while (unless clicked) not impacting the appearance? I want to make sure I am not violating Google Webmaster's guidelines for "Hidden Text" Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Sitemaps / Google Indexing / Submitted
We just submitted a new sitemap to google for our new rails app - http://www.thesquarefoot.com/sitemap.xml Which has over 1,400 pages, however Google is only seeing 114. About 1,200 are in the listings folder / 250 blog posts / and 15 landing pages. Any help would be appreciated! Aron sitemap.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheSquareFoot0