Ask An SEO: Why Is Google Not Indexing My Pages? via @sejournal, @rollerblader

4 months ago 100
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This week’s Ask An SEO question comes from Harjeet:

“Hi! I person a website that provides accusation of warehouses each implicit United states. The occupation is that lone 8 to 9 pages are indexed by Google. But it has galore dynamic pages.

For example, if you bash a hunt for immoderate determination connected homepage hunt bar, it volition unfastened the determination leafage with the listings.

But Google is not indexing the determination pages and warehouse listings arsenic well. Can you assistance maine lick this issue?”

That’s a large question, and I deliberation I tin help.

After looking astatine your website, it looks similar you person a crawling issue with a deficiency of existent pages and not an indexing one.

I tin verify you lone person 9 pages successful Google’s indexes. This is due to the fact that you lone person 9 existent pages connected your website.

I privation to commencement with an overview of immoderate of the tract issues. Then, aft the overview, I’ll stock however to resoluteness a ample chunk of this truthful you tin statesman getting pages crawled and indexed.

Identifying The Gaps In Your Website Structure

It’s precise hard for some consumers and hunt engines to navigate your website due to the fact that you are missing links and easy-to-find navigation.

There are besides 2 sitemaps, and 1 of them is incorrect. The bully quality is your close 1 is listed successful robots.txt, but it lone has your site’s navigation successful it and not the pages that are being created dynamically.

To start, database the astir important subpages successful your sitemap truthful hunt engines tin find them much easily.

The robots.txt record besides includes a disallow directive for each idiosyncratic agents which is problematic due to the fact that this is blocking crawling and not guiding crawlers to due folders and pages.

Specify “allow” for the important folders and pathways you privation crawled. This guides spiders to the pages and folders you consciousness are astir important.

On apical of the sitemap and robots.txt issues, determination is nary internal linking. Internal links are important to let crawlers to determination astir your tract and find caller pages that request indexing.

Next is to look astatine the quality of your content and however it is displayed.

The contented connected your tract is bladed and determination is nary contented that tin supply the benignant of accusation that experts successful retention successful the section country would know.

Add unsocial contented and determination accusation to each leafage individually (more connected this beneath successful the however to hole this contented section).

The tract is besides missing robots meta tags and canonical links. Meta robot tags springiness directions connected whether the pages should beryllium indexed oregon not and if links should beryllium followed oregon not.

Canonical links accidental which mentation is the official version of a leafage and tin assistance deduplicate akin oregon competing pages. Adding these volition assistance hunt engines cognize what to bash arsenic the pages and links are discovered.

Last, you person nary metropolis oregon state-based pages arsenic dedicated resources, but you bash person them successful a drop-down successful the hunt box. The contented present is these pages don’t beryllium unless searched for.

If they don’t beryllium connected an authoritative URL, hunt engines cannot find them and scale them easily.

There are different tech and contented issues here, but I’m going to leap into fixing the main one, which is getting much pages indexed for you. And this is an incredibly casual one, truthful this is bully news.

Filling The Missing SEO Elements

There are a fewer steps I would instrumentality if this were my tract oregon project:

  1. Build a cities and/or regions and states folder structure.
  2. Get unsocial contented for each.
  3. Add successful breadcrumbs and interior links.
  4. Modify the robots.txt and sitemaps.
  5. Do section PR work, not spammy links and directories.

Build A Folder Structure

When you let a tract hunt to make URLs for cities, states, and locations, you make a ton of competing URLs.

People tin spell a metropolis incorrect oregon usage an abbreviation: Philly, Philadelphia (and is it Missouri oregon PA), oregon neighborhoods similar Fishtown oregon Center City if it is the Pennsylvania mentation of Philadelphia.

And if you unrecorded successful the DMV (DC, MD, VA) similar I do, you whitethorn benignant successful Washington oregon Columbia Heights vs. the authorities oregon metropolis name. Washington could besides beryllium either DC oregon the state.

Building a folder operation lets you usher radical to the close determination and makes it easier for hunt engines to cognize wherever you connection services.

For example, EU companies tin operation by country; idiosyncratic countries similar Mexico could person states similar Jalisco and Oaxaca and the large cities successful each.

Create Unique Content

Original location-based contented is casual to usage for your niche. Each portion has antithetic climates, and cities do, too. Bring these into information erstwhile penning the copy.

If the portion has much humidity, speech astir however the gathering protects against mold, mildew, corrosion, and different humidity issues that interaction retention and warehousing.

For areas that suffer powerfulness due to the fact that of hurricanes, snow, oregon adjacent heat, speech astir backup systems and refrigeration for temperature-critical items being stored.

You could see city-based contented and localize with archetypal talking points, including directions to the location. Don’t hide to see physical addresses, hours of operation, and telephone numbers.

I wrote this usher to localized rubric tags and descriptions a portion back, it applies here, too.

Add Breadcrumbs And Internal Links

Now that you person unsocial contented for the states and large cities successful an easy-to-navigate directory structure, assistance users and hunt engines find them.

Add breadcrumbs with breadcrumb schema to the tract – ideally, astatine the apical of the leafage truthful users tin click and usage them.

In the unsocial transcript for the authorities pages, nexus to the metropolis pages. If it volition payment the user, nexus backmost to the main caput authorities pages from the metropolis pages.

An illustration for this would beryllium if 1 metropolis has radical renting successful different cities successful that state, oregon if 1 determination fills up, different locations that are adjacent by and are easy accessible arsenic an alternative.

The transcript whitethorn notation looking for different warehousing options successful that authorities oregon different city/region. Use the sanction of the authorities oregon metropolis with the telephone to enactment and marque them an interior link.

You’re helping the idiosyncratic find a solution, and hunt engines recognize what each leafage is about.

This is however you physique an effectual and meaningful interior linking operation for SEO. The main extremity is to assistance a customer; the payment is you marque it easier for hunt engines to recognize your tract structure.

Modify The Robots.txt And Sitemaps

At this point, you person a bully tract and idiosyncratic experience. Now is the clip to marque definite the states and cities are successful the sitemap, and past modify your robots.txt to let the folders.

You tin petition a crawl from Search Console for Google and Bing’s mentation of Webmaster Tools.

As the spiders entree robots.txt, they volition find your listed pages, past done interior links find different pages to crawl to find each your pages.

With due meta robots and canonicals, they volition spot cleanable pathways and beryllium capable to crawl your tract better.

Drive Demand Through Local PR

Anyone tin database successful directories and wage to play. Yes, immoderate whitethorn assistance you, but the existent payment is section PR.

Getting your concern featured successful the media drives section demand. People successful those regions statesman searching for your institution by sanction and the services arsenic modifiers connected the keywords.

This whitethorn oregon whitethorn not assistance with SEO, but it does 1 thing: It builds user spot and gets you localized, high-value backlinks. These tin nonstop spot signals and customers to you.

Local media includes section blogs that bash not let impermanent posting oregon sponsored posts, TV and people media similar section newspapers, vigor stations and podcasts with descriptions with links, and different platforms that radical successful the metropolis oregon authorities use.

You whitethorn beryllium capable to adhd a PR barroom with “As Seen In” featuring section media logos to physique spot with that region.

Summary

The bully quality is that you don’t person an indexing problem. The pages that beryllium are indexed.

You person find problems due to the fact that lone 9 pages really beryllium connected your website.

The solution present is to physique the authorities and city-based pages, capable them with contented and tract structure, and past bash the enactment to physique spot with PR and trust-building activities.

I anticipation this helps. Thank you for asking your question – it’s a bully one!

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