Google’s Search Relations team, consisting of experts Martin Splitt, John Mueller, and Gary Illyes, share insights into why a website’s home page may not be indexed in their latest podcast episode, “Search Off The Record”.
The discussion revolved around technical and non-technical issues that could prevent a website’s home page from appearing in Google search results.
Technical reasons and solutions
If a website’s home page is not indexed, it suggests a major technical problem.
Illyes states:
“For new sites, especially the home page, it should be very easy to index. If that’s not indexing, it certainly points to a bigger problem.”
Several potential technical issues could be causing this problem:
The website may not be accessible from Googlebot. The robots.txt file might be blocking Googlebot. The homepage URL may not be linked to any other page.
To resolve these issues, check your server logs to see if Googlebot is crawling your homepage.
Next, check your robots.txt file, which tells Googlebot which pages you want to crawl. Remove it if it contains a directive that blocks the home page, such as a noindex meta tag.
Canonicalization issues could be another potential problem if the home page redirects or canonicalizes to another page. In these cases, Google will index the canonical page, not the home page. Therefore, it is essential to check for unnecessary redirects from the home page.
Finally, make sure that links back to the home page from internal pages on your website. If visitors can’t easily navigate the home page, neither can Googlebot.
Non-technical reasons and solutions
There are non-technical reasons that can prevent a home page from being indexed.
If your homepage contains placeholder content, such as template text, copyright notices, or graphics under construction, Google may choose not to index the page.
In general, Google prefers to index content that provides valuable information, which means you should follow Google’s helpful content guidelines when creating your homepage.
They also noted that canonicalization and hreflang issues can cause a home page to appear unindexed if it’s canonicalized to another URL.
Finally, if a site already hosted spam or low-quality content, the home page could be blocked for policy reasons. In these cases, Google may need to review the site before allowing the home page to be indexed again.
Patience is key
Both technical and non-technical issues can prevent a website’s home page from being indexed by Google. Identifying and solving these problems requires patience and a diligent solution.
Technical issues like crawl blocks, canonicalization errors, and missing internal links can be fixed by checking server logs, auditing redirects, and improving site architecture.
Non-technical issues related to placeholder content, past spam penalties, and new site latency can be resolved by improving content quality, requesting reviews, and giving Googlebot enough time to crawl the site.
The key is not to get discouraged, but to take the opportunity to improve your website’s technical foundation, content quality, and user experience.
By thoroughly addressing indexing issues, you’ll create a stronger, Google-friendly site in the long run.
Featured image generated by the author via Midjourney.
source: Google search off the record
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