In a Google Office Hours Q&A, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about a site not being indexed that brought up a technical SEO fact about domains and subdomains that not everyone may know and how this could lead to the perception that a site has trouble getting indexed.
The person who asked the question built a website using a framework (Core MVC) and then published it under the secure HTTPS protocol.
However, they soon discovered that they had trouble indexing the content.
Since the known variables in the scenario were the framework used to build the site and that they were using the HTTPS protocol, the person who asked the question mentioned both of these factors in their question.
Could it be that the web application framework used somehow interferes with indexing?
Or is there something about the HTTPS configuration that prevents indexing?
The question was asked:
“I created a new site in Core MVC and moved it to HTTPS and I’m having trouble indexing the new pages.”
Google’s John Mueller took a look at the site and found that the MVC framework and HTTPS had nothing to do with the perceived indexing issues.
Mueller responded:
“…I took a look at your site and how it is indexed.
It looks like your site is indexed without the www subdomain, so if you explicitly search for the www version of your site, you won’t find much.
If you search for just the domain, such as site:domain.com, it will be indexed.”
There is always more than meets the eye
Sometimes the answer to a problem is hidden by the most obvious possible causes of the problem, limiting the ability to identify the real solution. The best way to solve an SEO problem is to never stop looking for an answer to any obvious problem.
John Mueller may have redefined the problem from the site is not indexed to the WWW version of the site is not indexed, so let’s check the non-WWW version.
WWW is a subdomain
The solution identification is also a reminder of an important technical fact about the www and non-www versions of a website, since the WWW version is a subdomain of the non-www version.
Listen to Google’s office hours at 2:51 minutes into the recording:
Why is a site not indexed?
Featured image by Shutterstock/Luis Molinero
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