An SEO professional was concerned about the discovered not indexed status in Google Search Console.
They have been ranking number 5 on the first page of Google for a long time. They have been making a lot of upgrades on their site, such as adding Frequently Asked Questions, and getting good organic links on their pages. And they now have more content than their competition.
However, they are still placed in the fifth position on Google, and they are still there four months later.
Their question is: does John have any advice that they can use to get their ranking up?
John replied that, while he doesn’t have any specific advice, he mentioned that there are many different things that come into play here. So it’s not really a situation where there’s this one trick to get past position five.
It’s a function of all the competition that you have there. All of the other signals that they have collected for the site for your content.
His advice was pretty generic in that he explained that the SEO professional should really just “keep doing good things.
This SEO professional then proceeded to ask about a page they had created that continued to remain discovered and not indexed.
Their question was – how long can they actually expect for this to last?
John explained that this can be forever. It’s something where Google doesn’t just crawl and index all pages. And especially with a newer site, if they have a lot of content, then John would assume that it’s expected that a lot of the new content will be discovered and not indexed for a while.
Then, over time, it will shift over and it’s – well- it’s actually crawled or it’s actually indexed. Then Google will see that there’s actually value in focusing more on the site itself, but it’s not guaranteed.
From this perspective, John explained that the SEO professional shouldn’t wait just a little bit and suddenly, things will get better with crawling and indexing.
It’s more that they should continue working on the site and making sure that Google’s systems recognize that there is value in crawling and indexing more, and over time, Google will crawl and index more.
This happens at approximately the 48:06 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 48:06
Hi, John. I have two short questions. So basically, the first one is about a smaller market that doesn’t have so much competition. So it’s not the United States, right. So we’re making a lot of upgrades on our site like adding frequently asked questions. We’re getting good organic links on our pages. And we have more content than our competition.
But we’re firmly placed on the fifth position, and we can’t move now for months. Basically, my question is, do you have any type of advice, any kind of advice about what we can do or what we can try to get our ranking up?
John 48:48
I can’t, I mean, I don’t have anything specific to kind of say like, in general, if you’re in position five, and you’re doing a lot of things, you should also do this. When it comes to search and rankings, there’s just so many different things that come into play there. So it’s, it’s not really like there’s this one trick to get past position five.
Essentially, it’s, I don’t know, a function of all of the competition that you have there. All of the other signals that we’ve collected for your site for your content. And so it, it’s almost like, keep doing good things is kind of the best advice.
SEO Professional 49:32
Yeah. Because some results in front of us are just translations of say, English sites, which is automatic. It’s not even content that is deliberately made. Yeah. So okay, the second question is, we started a new page about two months ago, and we have pages that are discovered but not indexed. So my question is just how long can we actually expect for that to last, and yeah…
John 50:04
That can be forever. It’s something where we just don’t crawl and index all pages. And it’s, it’s completely normal for any website that we don’t have everything indexed. And especially with a newer website, if you have a lot of content, then I would assume that it’s expected that a lot of the new content for a while will be discovered and not indexed.
And then over time, usually, it kind of shifts over and it’s like, well, it’s actually crawled or it’s actually indexed. When we see that there’s actually value in kind of focusing more on the website itself, but it’s not guaranteed.
So from that point of view, it’s not that I would say you should just wait a little bit, and then suddenly, things will get better with crawling and indexing.
It’s more that, like, continue working on the website and making sure that our systems recognize that there’s value in crawling and indexing more. And then over time, we will crawl an index more.
