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I've read related questions and still need help.

The other day, after verifying both "example.com" and "www.example.com" and setting the preferred version as "www.example.com" in Google Webmaster tools, I submitted by sitemap with 139 URL's (sitemap URL above). After the process was complete, only one of the links was indexed, this was the main page "www.example.com".

I am really unsure of why this is, my sitemap is correctly formatted (W3 validated) has the correct URL's, the "www" versions that point to my content.

  • I am 301 redirecting all non-www URL's to www (my preferred version)
  • After seeing that both "www.example.com" and "www.example.com/index.php" were being indexed (duplicate), I removed the latter through GWT and set up a 301 to redirect the latter to the former to resolve it.

I uploaded the site two days ago (could it be because the site is new?).

I would really appreciate some guidance here as to why this is happening.

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    New sites are rarely indexed quickly. Be patient and keep an eye out for errors reported in GWT.
    – John Conde ♦
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 16:08
  • Thanks for commenting, that's odd, how come my Wordpress sites are indexed as soon as the sitemap has been processed with 90% of URL's indexed, even if the domain is only a few days old? This one is a standard PHP site, does it make a difference?
    – Zain
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 16:16
  • The software doesn't make a difference (unless it is specifically blocking pages, etc). But Wordpress sites do not have an advantage over "normal" php sites.
    – John Conde ♦
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 16:18
  • @JohnConde Just for my education, from your experience, what advantages does WP have over standard sites. I know about SEO and plug-ins like Yoast, but not much more than that. Is there more? A simple list is good if you can. If it is TMI, then TMI is okay. ;-) Much Grass Senior. (my attempt at being multilingual)
    – closetnoc
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 16:42
  • It has no advantages outside of you don't have to do it all from scratch. Install WP, add plugins, go.
    – John Conde ♦
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 16:46

1 Answer 1

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I would give it more time. For a new site that is not crawled often it may take a while to get indexed. Here are a few ways you can speed it up a bit:

1) Having good quality link point to your site will help with crawling.

2) Having positive social media indicators such as likes, shares and etc. will help with crawling

3) You can submit your site to a few ping sites. Not really sure how effective it will be anymore but worth a shot.

Whatever you do, just don't rush it. For example, building links too fast could land you into some trouble.

If you don't see any improvements after 30 days I would check the following:

1) Check to make sure that your robots.txt file is not blocking bots.

2) Check to make sure that pages that you want indexed don't have noindex meta tags.

3) Evaluate the quality of your content.

4) Make sure that your server is not acting up. This could prevent bots from crawling your site successful.

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