Indexing and search issues
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I am still having major problems getting my sites to appear in searches.
Google has indexed my site and one page after specific requests from me in the search console. They are suggesting that part of the issue of pages ‘discovered – not yet indexed’ may be due to the fact that WordPress.com has a lot of sites/pages that need indexing. Is this likely? The sitemap was submitted the first time sometime in August. I resubmitted successfully on September 23rd as Google suggested there might be a problem.
Google crawl stats are showing 96 instances of 404 ‘Not found’ for https://musicliturgyandme.wordpress.com/ads.txt and 2 of 301 ‘Moved permanently’ for https://musicliturgyandme.wordpress.com/favicon.ico. Is this normal? Are these relevant? Crawl stats go back to July.
Bing does not appear to have indexed the site (site:https etc brings up no result on Bing) and the response I got when contacting their support claims that the site does not meet the standards for indexing. I have requested further clarification of this from Bing because, as far as I can see, I have done everything I should have done.
The page other than the homepage that Google has indexed is https://musicliturgyandme.wordpress.com/2022/09/29/whats-that-hymn-2/ (no reason for choosing that one other than it was the post I had up and knew there should not be a problem with it.) However, Bing, after a url inspection of the live page, says there are 2 instances of ‘more than one H1 tag’ and 1 instance of ‘meta description too long or too short’ and these are errors.
As a start, could someone from WordPress please look at my site to see if there are any issues that might be preventing indexing of the posts.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there:
While you can request that Google index your site, it’s still up to them whether or not they do so.
We provide a sitemap automatically, you’ve set up Google’s site verification on your site already, and submitted indexing requests. The rest is up to Google.
The fact that there are search results for your site means that there’s nothing on our end preventing Google from indexing your site.
I’d recommend reading their support document about why your site isn’t being indexed fully:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7474347
If you still have questions or concerns, you would need to reach out to Google for help.
Google crawl stats are showing 96 instances of 404 ‘Not found’ for https://musicliturgyandme.wordpress.com/ads.txt and 2 of 301 ‘Moved permanently’ for https://musicliturgyandme.wordpress.com/favicon.ico. Is this normal? Are these relevant?
They’re not relevant. You’re not in our WordAds program, so the ads.txt would report a 404 error and the 301 message just indicates the file is in a different location. Neither of these impacts your site’s availability to be indexed.
Again, we have no control over what Google chooses to index and the fact that there are items from your site in their index means everything is working on our end and you would need to contact Google for further assistance.
I hope that clarifies things.
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I have contacted Google support, and they suggest that the large volume of sites in WordPress is possibly causing the issue.
I have read the suggested document and had done so before I contacted you.
The posts that have been indexed on Google have all been done manually via url inspection. As I am now getting traffic via Google, I am hoping that the issue will resolve itself, given a bit more time.
However, this does not resolve anything as far as indexing on Bing is concerned. Even the basic site is not indexed there. I have read all their suggestions and I cannot see that my site contravenes any of their guidelines, which is what they suggested.
1) Are the ‘errors’ I mentioned above actually there?
2) Is there anything I can do, like I did with Goggle to verify the site with Bing and submit a sitemap?
Bing webmaster tools suggests I have already done this, but I do not remember posting any code from Bing into WordPress, like I did with Google.
Should I click ‘resubmit’ in bwt?
Should I delete the sitemaps in bwt and then resubmit?Is there an issue with ‘new’ sites generally not being indexed (first by Google and now by Bing)? Internet search suggests this may be the case.
Either way, I am not terribly happy with the way this has been handled by WordPress. I had to wait four days for your reply to my initial query. At the time, I assumed it was because you were checking my site, but your response seems to indicate that this is not the case. I do not expect an immediate reply to a question like this but four days is not good.
One of your selling points is that the indexing bit is all done by you and all I should need to do is set up the site and post. This clearly has not happened. I wonder how many more sites are actually affected by this issue where the owners have not reached out to you. Or have reached out but have been brushed off with the ‘These things take time’ response. -
Hello there,
I have contacted Google support, and they suggest that the large volume of sites in WordPress is possibly causing the issue.
This sounds a little bit odd – are they referring to search term competition here?
2) Is there anything I can do, like I did with Goggle to verify the site with Bing and submit a sitemap?
Bing webmaster tools suggests I have already done this, but I do not remember posting any code from Bing into WordPress, like I did with Google.You would need to add a meta tag as per these instructions here: https://wordpress.com/support/site-verification-services/#bing-webmaster-center
Is there an issue with ‘new’ sites generally not being indexed (first by Google and now by Bing)? Internet search suggests this may be the case.
Not generally speaking. All sites on the web are at the behest of search engines.
Either way, I am not terribly happy with the way this has been handled by WordPress. I had to wait four days for your reply to my initial query. At the time, I assumed it was because you were checking my site, but your response seems to indicate that this is not the case. I do not expect an immediate reply to a question like this but four days is not good.
This site is on the free plan, so the support received is via these forums, which are responded to from helpful volunteers and staff. They’re not a realtime response.
Please see more on the support provided here: https://wordpress.com/support/help-support-options/
We hope this helps.
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This is the direct quote from google
TBH you are using WordPress platform where lot of sites are being hosted. Hence the crawling might take some time.Regarding the Bing verification, do I need to remove the sitemap and resubmit before I can verify it, or can I just add the site again? I can’t see any way to verify what is already there. In fact, when I try, it says it has been imported from Google SC and doesn’t need verifying. I have just resubmitted the sitemap and BWT tells me it is successful. But then, it said that before, so I don’t know if I’m any further forward.
However, a site scan (before resubmitting) in Bing tells me there is a meta-tag missing from my homepage. I don’t know how relevant this is or even what it means tbh.
After resubmitting, live url test says page can be indexed. So I have requested this. Everything crossed that this will work this time.
By the way, looking at stats from WP.com I noticed that I was getting referrals from Bing in May and June and then they stopped.
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Hi there,
In fact, when I try, it says it has been imported from Google SC and doesn’t need verifying.
That is correct; if you verify your site in Google Search Console first, then go to Bing, the option to “import from GSC” as Bing explains here: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/add-and-verify-site-12184f8b.
We are not familiar with their internal processes (they just provide the meta tag option for us to connect sites), so if you are unsure, I recommend reaching out to Bing Webmaster support so they can take a closer look.
However, a site scan (before resubmitting) in Bing tells me there is a meta-tag missing from my homepage. I don’t know how relevant this is or even what it means tbh.
You can address this by setting up a custom homepage for your site and adding an excerpt to the homepage, which search engines will use for your page meta description. The other option is to upgrade to our Business Plan, where you will have the opportunity to set this in our advanced SEO Tools: https://wordpress.com/support/seo-tools/.
Regardless, meta-descriptions (and meta-tags) are not typically a requirement and don’t significantly affect your SEO, so that should not prevent Bing from indexing your site and the on-page SEO that is present in your homepage blog posts.
By the way, looking at stats from WP.com I noticed that I was getting referrals from Bing in May and June and then they stopped.
Sadly we don’t have control over what search engine providers do on their end. Our platform has excellent SEO out of the box, but optimization is just one factor (out of many) for why and how they decide to show content in search results. You could contact Bing support to see if they can offer any insights, but on our end, your site appears to be functioning correctly, and there is nothing blocking search engine access to your content. Beyond verifying those details for you, there is not much we can do on our end.
Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.
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