Indexing is becoming much harder for new and even existing websites.
From what we know here at HVAC Leads, the size of Google’s index seems to be more or less static (about 400 billion documents). Due to the emergence of AI content creation, we are:
- Producing more (good and bad) content.
- The bar for content quality has a new, higher baseline.
More content of a higher quality baseline vs. same index size = it’s harder to get indexed.
Getting indexed on Google has become more challenging due to a growing amount of online content, leading to Google being more selective about what it indexes, resulting in fewer results for certain searches; this is primarily because Google prioritizes high-quality, relevant content and has limited resources to crawl and index everything on the web.
Key points about why indexing is harder now:
- Content overload:
With the internet constantly generating new content, Google has to filter through a massive amount of data to identify the most valuable pages to index.
- Quality focus:
Google is increasingly prioritizing high-quality, original content, making it harder for low-value or duplicate content to get indexed.
- Algorithm updates:
Google constantly updates its algorithms to better identify relevant and trustworthy content, which can impact how well a website gets indexed.
- Crawl budget limitations:
Websites with a large number of pages might exceed their “crawl budget,” meaning Google’s crawler can only access a limited number of pages on the site, potentially leaving some pages unindexed.
What can website owners do to improve indexing:
- Create high-quality content:
Focus on producing valuable and original content that is relevant to your target audience.
- Optimize site structure:
Ensure your website has a clear navigation structure and well-organized content.
- Use sitemaps:
Submit a sitemap to Google to help it discover and index your pages more efficiently.
- Manage robots.txt:
Use robots.txt to prevent Google from crawling unnecessary pages on your site.
- Monitor Search Console:Regularly check your Google Search Console to identify any indexing issues and fix them. Use the “URL Inspection Tool” in Search Console to manually request indexing for specific pages.
If your website isn’t being indexed by Google here are some other areas to check and fix:
- New website: Give Google some time to discover your site, especially if it’s brand new.
- Sitemap submission: Ensure you’ve submitted a sitemap to Google Search Console to clearly indicate which pages to crawl.
- Robot.txt file: Check if your robots.txt file isn’t accidentally blocking Googlebot from accessing important pages.
- Noindex tags: Review your pages for any “noindex” meta tags that might be preventing indexing.
- Content quality: Ensure your content is valuable, informative, and relevant to your target audience.
- Internal linking: Make sure pages on your site are properly linked together to help Google navigate. Google will not index pages that aren’t internally linked.
- Technical issues: Check for server errors, slow loading times, or JavaScript issues that could hinder crawling.
- Mobile-friendliness: Ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices.
Duplicate content: Avoid having large amounts of identical content across your website.
HVAC Leads has technical SEO specialists that can help you and your company find and fix website indexing issues on Google. It’s important to note that new websites will take longer to index but with the right content strategy, internal/external link building and SEO best practice you will see results sooner than later.
