One SEO professional was having indexing issues in Google Search Console.
They have two major issues: crawled, currently not indexed. And discovered, currently not indexed.
In both cases, these pages are not indexed. Their main problems were that they had recently submitted approximately 150 URLs.
Out of that, many of them have already been indexed.
Quite a few pages are not getting indexed in the Google SERPs.
They are aware that google doesn’t index all of a website’s content, and that it could very well take time.
However, Google Search Console doesn’t give much more information. It shows their last crawl or something, and not much else.
The pages that were created were almost the same. And they do bring a lot of value.
So their main question is: what should they be doing if there is much less information? Or what can they do to make these pages rank faster? Such as linking from the home page, or linking from the pages that are already ranking for some of the queries of their site?
Will this help them get these pages to rank a bit faster…with more backlinks?
John explained that he believes all of these tasks will help. And it sounds like the SEO professional is on the right track already, in terms of what to expect.
From Google’s point of view, however, it really is the case that they don’t index all content on the professional’s sites. And that should be expected from their side, rather than Google crawling and indexing everything.
If they are seeing much of their content already being indexed, then John believes they are already on the right track. However, it doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.
He went on to further explain that for things like internal linking, and making sure the website is of overall high quality are all good ideas.
These types of tasks help a lot.
Sometimes, it may even help to look at the website overall and say –
“Well, I have submitted 500 pages in my second file or wherever. And 200 of them are being indexed. What is the value of those 300 pages that are not getting indexed?”
“Is there something that perhaps I could do to go from having 500 random pages on a website, maybe reducing it down to perhaps 300 really good pages on a website? To concentrate more on the value on those fewer pages so that, at least as those fewer pages get indexed, you could get a lot of the value of these pages back?
And then it could also be that they end up ranking for different keywords, or they may work better for the users you care about.”
This is a way of prioritizing pages before handing everything over to Google, which is an approach that John likes.
He also mentioned that you should make sure that you have everything lined up properly with internal linking and the overall quality of the website.
In addition, if you’re seeing that many of your pages are not being indexed, then you may want to try and find a way to make it clear to Google which pages they should be prioritizing.
Remove some pages that you don’t really care about, or are not critical for your site overall.
This happens at approximately the 51:54 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 9 51:54
Hi, John. My question is related to coverage issues. One is crawled, but currently are not indexed. And one is discovered, currently not indexed. And in both cases, the pages are not indexed. So this is my main problem. However, we had recently submitted, see, around 150 URLs and out of it, many of them have already been indexed.
But few pages are not getting indexed in Google SERPs or Google–. I know that Google does not index all–or like the whole content, it takes time and all those things. But the thing is that it doesn’t give much more information, it shows their last crawl or something N/A like, you know, not applicable or something like that.
Because the pages are created bigger thresholds are previous and these pages are almost the same. They do bring a lot of value. What should I do when there is much less information? Or what should I do to make these pages at least faster right, like linking from the home pages or linking from the pages which are already ranking for some of the queries of my particular website?
Will that help me you know, getting those pages rank a bit faster, like something like that, or could be like bringing more backlinks. And so?
John 53:22
I think all of those things kind of help. And it sounds like you’re on the right track and you know a little bit, like, what to expect. And from our point of view, it’s really the case that we don’t index content on all websites. And that’s kind of expected from our side.
So if you’re seeing a big part of your content already being indexed, I think you’re on the right approach. But it doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. And things like internal linking, making sure that the overall quality of your website is really good.
Those help a lot. Sometimes, it might also make sense to look at the website overall and say, Well, I have submitted 500 pages in my second file or wherever. And 200 of them are being indexed. Like what, what is the value of those 300 pages that are not getting indexed?
And is there something that maybe I can do to go from having 500 random pages on a website, maybe reducing down to maybe 300 really good pages on a website, to kind of like concentrate the value into fewer pages so that, at least as those fewer pages get indexed, you get a lot of the value of those pages back, which could be that they rank for different keywords or they they work for the users that you care about most kind of as a way of prioritizing on your side before you hand everything over to Google to do.
So that would kind of be my approach, there. On the one hand, kind of making sure that you have everything lined up properly with internal linking and the overall website quality. And on the other hand, if you’re seeing that lots of your pages are not being indexed, trying to find a way to make it clear to Google which pages they should be prioritizing.
Which could be like removing some pages that you don’t really care about, or that are not critical for your site.
SEO Professional 9 55:28
Is it like, let’s say there are few keywords, which has a very high search volume, let’s say, a shoes keyword, shoes keyword will probably have a very high search volume, rather than a short at my place or near the home.
A particular query has maybe 10 search volume or low. Or is it something like getting an internal link from a page, which has a very, you know, has a high search volume, which is again, ranking, rather than a page, which has a low search volume? Again, it’s ranking good, but why should I, you know, at least build internal links from those pages?
Is it something like, you know, the high keyword search volume pages, if you interlink the other pages of your website, that is something would be more valuable or something like that?
John 56:13
I don’t think we would look at the search volume at all for things like that. So it’s really a matter of understanding the importance of pages within your website. And that’s not tied to how many people search for those pages.
