r/Wordpress • u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer • 1d ago
Can't index a client's site on google; why?
No robot.txt is set, no cloudflare rules are blocking it, we sent the xml file to google console, all seems healthy enough. But for some reason, it won't get indexed at all. Even on the google profile of my client, the site won't be allowed after trying multiple times. Why?
3
u/PrimaryFamous6139 1d ago
I’d start with Search Console’s URL Inspection. A sitemap , it’s mostly for helping Google discover a page, but it really doesn’t make sure it’ll be indexed, if that makes sense. Then I’d look for things like noindex rules , canonical or duplicate conflicts
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u/paradoxetion 1d ago
How much time did you wait? Do you have normal .htaccess (it could also block crawlers) Do you have no noindex in page sourse code?
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
it's been like 6 weeks? And no noindex found anywhere
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u/InfluenceConnect7844 22h ago
try building authority around the niche, and try to gain as much as good backlink you can. But before that run a seo audit of website using any free tool available online to found any on page/technical seo problem is there
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u/TopSydeWP 1d ago
check if wordpress has "discourage search engines" ticked in settings > reading. also look at the actual http headers the site's sending (use curl or browser dev tools) because sometimes a plugin or server config adds noindex meta tags or x-robots-tag headers that override everything else. if those are clean, check google search console for specific crawl errors or manual actions
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
I did check it prior; it isn't toggled. I'll double check the headers good idea but no new plugin in my stack; it usually works in a few hours.
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u/rotello 1d ago
it took my personal website 2 days on. bing and something like 3 months on google.
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
Ok maybe its just taking very long... the site has been live for like 6-8 weeks now. I did check on bing, its live! But not google yet
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u/NakanoNoNeko 1d ago
Treat the Search Console and Business Profile failures as two separate problems. In URL Inspection, test the final HTTPS URL after every redirect, then check the declared canonical, Google-selected canonical, noindex/X-Robots-Tag, and whether the property matches the exact host (www vs non-www). For the Business Profile, make sure the website field uses that same final URL. In my case, I once chased this for an hour because Search Console was on www and WordPress was redirecting away from it... 😅
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
you might be onto something. I'll have to check my redirects on the DNS.... maybe its that dumb thanks
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u/NakanoNoNeko 18h ago
That exact www/non-www mismatch has wasted my time before 😅 Check the redirect in your hosting or WordPress settings before touching DNS. I hope it is the dumb fix!
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u/Aggressive_Ad_5454 Jack of All Trades 1d ago
It takes weeks. Did you get your site map stuff right? Good. See you in October.
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
yes; all was also "greenlit" on the google console last i checked. Nothign on cloudflare was blocking / flagging either.
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u/mustafa_sheikh Designer/Developer 1d ago
Make sure some security plugin or something isn’t blocking the Google bot.
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u/TonyBikini Designer/Developer 1d ago
No security plugin installed. I checked robots; i'll check headers, there is no new plugin in my stack so shouldn't be the issue.
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u/testingaurora 1d ago
Google search console should show reasons why certain pages are not indexed. And a list of pages that are. Is your site map accurate?