Site Audit: Indexed Pages Issue
-
Over the last couple of months I've been working through some issues with a client. One of my starting points was doing a site Audit. I'm following a post written by Geoff Kenyon https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015 .
One of the main issues of the site audit seems to be that when I run a "site:domain.com" query in Google my homepage isn't the first page listed in fact it isn't listed in this search when I go through all of the listings. I understand that it isn't required to have your homepage listed first when running this type of query, but I would prefer it.
Here are some things I've done
- I ran another query "info:homepage.com" and the home page is indexed by Google.
- When I run a branded search for the company name the home page does come up first.
- The current page that is showing up first in the "site:domain.com" listing is my blog index page.
- Several months back I redirected the index.php page to the root of the domain. Not sure if this is helping or hurting.
- In the sitemap I removed the index.php and left only the root domain as the page to index.
- Also all interior links are sent to the root, index.php has been eliminated from all internal links everything links to root
- The main site navigation does not refer to the "Home" page, but instead my logo is the link to the Home page.
- Should I noindex my blog/index.php page? This page is only a compilation of posts and does not have any original content instead it actually throws up duplicate content warnings.
Any help would be much appreciated. I apologize if this is a silly question, but I'm getting frustrated/ annoyed at the whole situation.
-
Thanks Seoman,
That was why I was wondering if I should noindex the blog index page. It is purely a listing of blog entries and not original content. It seems to throw up duplicate content issues and Google seems to give it the most page power on the site even though it is not my most important page.
I would want Google to still follow all of the links because those are the blog posts and the original content. I don't know if the noindex is the best choice but I think it at least it would tell Google "Hey guys the blog page is not my most important page. In fact it is just a compilation of posts"
I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, because I don't know if it will hurt me more than it is helping. I just don't know. If anyone has any other thoughts on the noindex of the blog index page which is not my home page feel free to drop me a line.
-
Apologies I'd slightly misunderstood your question, I see exactly what you mean now. I think this is purely down to the way Google associates the search intent and tries to deliver the most appropriate result.
The site parameter is obviously intended to help users find a specific item on the specified site, therefore if the blog has more content than the other pages there is more chance that it will have what the user is looking for hence Google will deliver that page out of preference.
Don't know for sure but just an assumption.As you said branded searches are fine, there certainly doesn't look to be any issues as far as I can see although I haven't done a full audit.
Would be interested to see what anyone else says but my gut feeling is there is nothing to be worried about, the main thing is you come up for your company name and search terms that you want.
Sorry hope that helps somewhat.
All the best
-
Feel free to take a look www.denverilluminations.com & www.denverilluminations.com/_blog/ .
Also the domain authority is 19 for the site I was looking at the individual page authorities. Thanks again Seoman.
-
Anyway you could let me have the two links and I can give them a quick look over?
Also bear in mind that DA isn't everything.
-
Seoman,
Thanks for the response. I appreciate any and all suggestions
- Blog page has a page authority of 1 out of 100 the home page has a page authority of 33 out of 100
- I looked at google's cache for pages and reviewed the text only version and everything is showing.
- Checked robots and I'm disallowing certain directories that I don't want indexed or crawled but those are all in order and I tested the robots.txt just to make sure it was written properly and it came back clean.
I don't believe noindexing my blog page is absolutely necessary, but I'm kind of wondering if Google thinks that it is my home page instead of my regular root directory? I know it sounds a little weird but I'm wondering if something is confusing the spiders. Thanks again for your time and thoughts.
-
Few quick thoughts come to mind (in order of priority)
- Blog page may have more authority than the homepage
- Could be a technical issue with the homepage (Maybe Google can't see anything there)
- Check your robots.txt to make sure it's not blocked (Sounds crazy but can happen)
I would strongly advise against noindexing unless it is absolutely necessary.
Personally I wouldn't be too worried about the homepage not showing although, I agree it's a good idea to know why. After all no customers are going to be using Google search parameters like site or info. They are going to be searching for what they want and expecting an answer on the page that Google provides them with.
Not sure if that helps or not but just a few thoughts.
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
-
Using posts to make static pages - A best practice or a bad idea?
I have started working with a few law firms this year. They already have websites and I am doing various marketing tasks such as copywriting, redesigns, and, of course, SEO. In a couple of cases I was surprised to find that they had made the pages describing their various practice areas post content. I'm not sure why. But I suspect that the idea might have been to have the phrase: /practice-areas/ as a part of their URL. I didn't really like the idea of treating pages like posts. It seems a bit like working the system. But apart from that, wouldn't pages have a higher value as "permanent" content? As posts - their publish date has more weight, right? And they'd get old? But maybe the previous developers were on to something and the category/post approach to listing practice areas is the way to go? I am starting a new site for a new firm and I'd like to feel more confident about the right structure to choose for this kind of website before I start. Does anybody know the right answer? Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | Dandelion1 -
My pages are absolutely plummeting. HELP!
Hi all, Several of my pages have absolutely tanked in the past fortnight, and I've no idea why. One of them, according to Moz, has a Page Optimisation Score of 96, and it's dropped from 10th to 20th. Our DA is lower than our competitors, but still, that's a substantial drop. Sadly, this has been replicated across the site. Any suggestions? Cheers, Rhys
Local Website Optimization | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
One of my man pages is not ranking and does not seem to exist.
One of my main pages is not ranking and does not seem to exist. I have gone through every tool on webmaster and yoast. I cannot find an error, but every metric I know of says my page should be on the first page of my target search term. Moz graded it as an A, but It is not ranked on any page. Can someone please help?? my target search is "Jekyll Island Wedding Photographer" my home page shows up on page 2 but this page http://saintsimonsphotography.com/jekyll-island-wedding-photographer/ is my page that does not seem to exist. I have never had this problem with any of my other businesses. Jekyll island is the next island over and I need this term to rank. Thank you for any help.
Local Website Optimization | | krivec80 -
Multi Location SEO Page Structure
I am trying to optimize my website for multiple locations. I have setup a landing page for each location. Now I want to optimize services we offer at those locations such as floor scrubber rentals. I'm confused on the best approach for this for ranking locally. I offer the same equipment for rent at each location. So... should I have a link on the location landing page that takes you to an individual floor scrubber rental page for each location optimized for that locations city or should I have just one floor scrubber rental page and would I optimize it for both cities or just optimize it for floor scrubber rentals in general? I have many different categories like this that are offered @ both locations. If I do individual pages all the products and rates will be duplicate but I could change the areas we deliver to and description to be more geared towards that city.
Local Website Optimization | | CougarChemMike0 -
Sub domain for geo pages
Hello Group! I have been tossing the idea in my head of using sub domains for the geo pages for each of my clients. For example: one of my clients is a lawyer in a very competitive Atlanta market http://bestdefensega.com. Can I set his geo page to woodstock.bestdefensega.com? Is this a viable option? Will I get penalized? Thoughts or suggestions always appreciated! Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | underdogmike0 -
SEO for local business directory type site
I am thinking about creating a local business directory type website that lists all local Tattoo Shops. I am familiar with both local and global SEO and how to differentiate between them, however, I am not sure how I should approach this type of website. It isn't an actual business, but I want to target local searches that are looking for tattoo shops. In other words, when someone types in "tattoo shops" or "tattoo shops near me", or "tattoo parlors", I want the website to appear. Is this something that is manageable, or will the individual Tattoo Shop websites always show before mine since they are real local businesses with google+ pages?
Local Website Optimization | | brfieger0 -
Combining sites. But what domain to use?
So we currently have two websites: www.thephotoboothguys.co.uk and www.thephotoboothguys.com.au We're redeveloping our sites, and combining them to have just a singular website (and then sub sections for each country / location). Unfortunately we can not get the .com of our domain, nor the _.net _And I really can't find a .com that i think will work (for lack of availability, or just because the domain name would not be succinct enough). So, I also have registered - www.photobooth.gy and www.thephotoboothguys.co
Local Website Optimization | | blitzna10
My question ultimately is - is it a bad idea to use a .gy or .co as my main domain - especially when we dont operate in either Guyana or Columbia - but, assuming that the content and structure of the website make it clear what countries and locations we do operate in. Is this something Google et al will figure out over time? Or is it likely to make a huge impact? Or should I be searching harder to find a .com that will work for me? Cheers!0 -
International site, be visible on both .com and .co.uk?
Do you guys have any tips to increase the visibility in both Google.com and Google.co.uk? The site today, have good visibility in USA, but its poor in the UK... Information: The server is based in US. No region is set in the Google Webmaster Tools. Incoming links are from global regions, mostly US. Do we need to add a specific section for the UK (uk.site.com or site.com/uk/) and specify region in GWT to make sure Google handle this the right way? Its a lot of work, rewrite all the content for another section, which also is in english...
Local Website Optimization | | Vivamedia0