Not exactly sure why the main page of my website which shows the latest post is being shown first when searching for post I made. The main page of my website shows up with the seo description showing the title of the post that I am searching for. Obviously this looks stupid, because the post title only shows up in the description and not in the seo title. How can I stop google from showing my archive page when searching for post.
2 Answers
I am not exactly sure I am following you so I will repeat what I think I understand.
You have a blog home page that list recent post snippets using the post titles and some text. When you search tor the title of a particular post, the home page is listed in the search engine result page (SERP) first.
The scenario that comes to mind is this.
Your post has your expected title in the title tag. You may have been prompted for a description that appears in the description meta-tag. Your home page lists the posts using the post title in an header tag perhaps H1 or H2 along with the description you were prompted for or a snippet from the first paragraph of the post. This may not be the exact scenario, but close.
This would not be uncommon for a blog.
I would be looking at the title tag of the home page to make sure that it is less than 70 characters and perhaps closer to 55 or 60. Make sure it is substantial and not a short title.
I would make sure that you have a description meta-tag for your home page that is less than 160 character perhaps about up to 140 or so.
I would make sure your home page has only one H1 tag that belongs to the home page.
I would make sure that your your blog snippets are not using a header tag for the post titles. It is better that it is a link. If it is a header tag, make sure it is H2 and not H1.
Based upon your description, I suspect that Google is not picking up the title/description combination of the home page. It may be seeing a valid title and using it - I am not sure. However, it does sound like Google is not picking up your description meta-tag and is picking up the first header tag according to priority - H1, H2, H3, etc.
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It sounds to me like the
archive pageis a list of the latest posts, but not the home page. Although I would imagine that what you describes would work. Maybe he could forbid indexing of thearchive pageif that's not the home page. Mar 28, 2014 at 2:38 -
Yes. You are right - archive page and not home page. However, the archive page is likely a valuable landing page and should be indexed. Block only if it becomes necessary. Substitute my use of home page for archive page and examine the elements to see what you can fix. Likely there are templates that govern how pages are built and this should be looked into. Mar 28, 2014 at 3:12
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My archive page is my home page, the home page lands on all recent post. When I search in google using the post title, i see : Site name - Tag line, then in description i shows the post title mixed in with a description...this looks awful, Id rather have Post title- Sit Name, show up in the search before that ugly archive page/home page Mar 29, 2014 at 6:34
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The biggest problem is that we are trying to answer a question in an information vacuum. A domain name and sample query string used in Google would help us to understand what is going. I still say pay attention to the HTML elements of the home/archive page. Search engines are very predictable with what they use, when, why, and how to create the SERPs. Most blog software use templates. You likely would be able to edit the templates to obtain the desired result. Mar 29, 2014 at 15:43
The home page of a website generally ranks higher than most other pages, especially new pages which don't have many incoming links and are newly indexed.
Google, and presumably other search engines, dynamically generate titles and descriptions based on the query. The fact that your homepage, which features posts in the traditional blog style (reverse chronological order) is ranking better than a (presumably) new post itself probably isn't worth worrying about.
Has it impacted your ranking on searches related to what you'd like your home page to rank for?
If it hasn't (or if you haven't noticed a drop in traffic/leads), find something else to worry about.
