To understand why your page is not indexed or why your website does not rank high, we need to start at the basics. Remember that Google is an advertising company in the business of selling your attention to advertisers. They get your attention by attracting you to their website with valuable tools (Maps, Docs, Gmail, etc.). The most popular tool is their Search Engine. But the internet is too big for Google to index every single page. And since no one even looks at search results on page two, there is no point in storing data about irrelevant, low-quality content. To ensure their search engine is the best in the market, they work hard to filter through the vast, boring pages of the internet and provide only the search results which contain the highest quality content that matches a user's intentions.

Essentially, if your page doesn't add something unique to a topic, which can't already be found on other more popular websites, the page won't rank high in the search results and probably also will not even be indexed.

Use Google Search Console to Identify Problems

You can check if Google indexes your particular page by searching "site:http://mydomain.com/My-Page". If no results are returned, there is a problem. 

First, you should use Google Search Console to make sure that Google doesn't have any technical obstacles that prevent it from indexing your website in general, e.g., it has found your Sitemap.xml file that shows the newest pages added to your site, the robots.txt file is not blocking their bots, there are no server errors or redirects that prevent reading the content, etc. If there are problems, the search console will tell you. Then you can search for information about the particular page that isn't indexed, but if no errors exist, and it says it was "crawled" but "Indexing Allowed: N/A", that means Google considers the page low-quality content and is choosing to ignore it. Be honest, is your content unique...?

Create High-Quality Content

If your page is crawled without any errors but is still not being indexed, the most likely reason is that it's low-quality  "thin content", duplicate, boring, expired, irrelevant content. Everyone wants a shortcut to success, but don't bet against Google's algorithms. They tell us exactly what they want: high-quality content. All SEO gimmicks aside, creating high-quality, fresh content is the only way to get ranked. It's hard to compete with the entire internet on any given topic, so instead, you should focus on making sure your content is of higher quality than your direct, local competitors.

• Original and Interesting. Make your content on this topic different than the pages on your competitor's website with analysis and research, and information beyond the obvious basics.
• Comprehensive. Make sure your content is more comprehensive than your competitors, e.g., more details, more research, and more resources.
• Good Headlines. Make sure the title and headlines are descriptive and interesting but not clickbait (Google knows).
• Memorable. Make sure this is the type of page you want to bookmark and/or share with friends/clients.
• Authority. Make sure that this page is exciting/relevant enough that other websites will want to link to it, and also, you consider it relevant enough to link to it from other pages of your own website. If you don't even link to it, why should Google consider it important?!

Case Study 1: Property on a Real Estate Website

We analyzed two very similar properties on a Realtor's website, one was indexed, and the other was not. They both had beautiful photos, a map, a video, and basic property details. The only difference was that the first property contained a description of the property which was 8 paragraphs long. The other property had two paragraphs describing the property and a few basic details. Google indexed the first property but not the second. Why? Because the same property already appears on Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and a thousand other websites aggregating the basic property details, where there is more information available and the sites are already more widespread. So why should Google index this page if it won't ever send traffic there because it's not high-quality content? 

Case Study 2: Beautiful Landing Page

 We analyzed two very similar. Home landing pages are both beautifully designed. The first home page was indexed because it had unique value propositions that described what made this business different from its competitors, client testimonials, a description of popular services and prices, answered key questions, and linked to more detailed information throughout the site. The second website home page had gorgeous graphics and photos but lacked any unique textual content. It was primarily just images, videos, and buttons linked to other parts of the website. The other pages on the website were indexed, but Google did not index the home page because the content was not a unique resource. 

Not Every Page Needs to Be Indexed

Remember, not every page needs to be indexed. It is more important that a home page is "Human Optimized" so that it engages human attention, builds trust/respect, and funnels visitors to your conversion goals (e.g., contact you, create an account, buy now, link to more information, etc). Also, if you are a Realtor, a new property doesn't necessarily need to be indexed on your website since it's not likely that people are searching for that specific address when they want to buy a home; that's not the traffic your site should be optimized for. Instead, you need to focus on attracting traffic for customers with the right intentions, e.g., those searching for the service you provide in your area, what makes you unique, etc. 

So don't get obsessed with indexing every page; you just need to know your goals for each page. Some pages are just meant to be "wow" visitors like a billboard when they first look up your domain name from a business card. Other pages are just resources for visitors after they are already on your website (e.g., properties). And yet other pages are meant to attract new visitors, specifically from organic search traffic based on specific topics that interest potential customers at various stages of the "buyer's journey". Those pages need to be Search Engine Optimized in order to add useful, high-quality content about a specific focused topic. As these attract organic traffic to your website, they need to convert that traffic into a lead by providing calls to action at the top or end of the page that get them to take the next step, go to another page, call you, etc. You need to think about what you want them to do after they arrive at your site.

Next Steps: Get Professional Help

If you have questions or you need more help analyzing your own website or improving SEO on your website, drop us a note and schedule a consultation!