Questions tagged [google-search-console]
A Google web-based console that provides additional insight into a registered website's search performance and potential issues.
2,857
questions
271
votes
20
answers
45k
views
The Sitemap Paradox
We use a sitemap on Stack Overflow, but I have mixed feelings about it.
Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow ...
- 13.9k
128
votes
5
answers
246k
views
Moving from HTTP to HTTPS in Google Search Console
I'm moving from HTTP to HTTPS for my entire site. The site is currently added to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) as www.example.com and all the pages are indexed without using ...
- 1,471
73
votes
5
answers
30k
views
Are there any clear indicators that my sitemap file is beneficial?
I have recently created a sitemap.xml file and uploaded it to my Google Webmasters Tools account. Google didn't report any issues or errors with the uploaded sitemap of my site.
Now my question is:
...
user1420373
30
votes
4
answers
43k
views
What can cause "Discovered - currently not indexed" in the new GWT
The new GWT shows sitemaps links divided into new categories. Two that confuse me:
1. Discovered- currently not indexed
2. Crawled - currently not indexed
What are the possible reasons for this, and ...
- 2,008
29
votes
1
answer
3k
views
How exactly is Google Webmaster Tools measuring "Site Performance"?
I've been working for two months now on improving our response time (mainly server side) on a new forum (a brand new product on a technical point of view) we've launched in Germany a few month ago and ...
- 291
29
votes
1
answer
52k
views
Find pages that link to another URL?
IIRC, Google used to let you do a search for all pages that link to a URL, but I can't find that method any more. Also, I don't see it in Webmaster Tools either.
I am probably overlooking something, ...
- 696
28
votes
2
answers
18k
views
Can I have multiple Google Site Verification TXT records on one domain?
Our company's domain already has a google-site-verification= TXT record on it, so I guess somebody else set up Google Search Console at one point. However, I'm not sure who in the company that might ...
- 549
23
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Is it a problem if someone disavows my site? I'm getting threats that other sites will do that if I don't remove links
I've been getting to many of these emails:
My name is John Doe web manager of www.somewebsite. This is our 3rd
and final request to you to remove links from your website to ours. If
we don't ...
- 2,008
22
votes
2
answers
35k
views
International Targeting "no return tags"
Google Webmaster Tools has added an International Targeting Report to show hreflang errors. There's a section that reports "no return tags" errors with Originating URL & Alternate URL columns.
...
- 5,874
21
votes
2
answers
7k
views
Leverage browser caching on GitHub pages
After using Google's PageSpeed Insights for my site [ http://flashmallach.github.com ] the biggest error I'm still coming up w/ is leveraging browser caching. I found some solutions that suggest using ...
- 311
18
votes
2
answers
15k
views
Google Webmaster Tools Index Status is 0 but sitemap URL shows indexed
I've added my site to Google Webmaster Tools.
The site was submitted a few weeks ago. The index status shows 0 but it shows 6 URLs have been indexed in the sitemaps section.
If I search in Google I ...
- 549
17
votes
6
answers
12k
views
How to get tens of millions of pages indexed by Google bot?
We are currently developing a site that currently has 8 million unique pages that will grow to about 20 million right away, and eventually to about 50 million or more.
Before you criticize... Yes, it ...
- 1,328
17
votes
3
answers
12k
views
What does Avg Position from Google Webmaster really mean
I have a website I am tracking on Google's Webmaster tools. When I look at the Search queries page it shows me a graph of Impressions and clicks per day. Underneath that there is a table showing ...
- 12.8k
16
votes
3
answers
8k
views
Google Search Console is making up URLs which don't exist in my Sitemap and then complains that these pages have error
I am working on an e-commerce website. I used to have a sitemap with category Ids, something like:
<url>
<loc>https://my-domain.com/home/browse/2/45/139</loc>
<changefreq&...
- 538
16
votes
8
answers
14k
views
Huge drop [50%] in traffic after HTTPS move
Currently look after 3 websites. I changed one of them to be HTTPS as it's ecommerce, however have seen a huge drop in organic traffic since this was implemented. Went from around 800 impressions to ...
- 181
16
votes
6
answers
37k
views
Massive 404 attack with non existent URLs. How to prevent this?
The problem is a whole load of 404 errors, as reported by Google Webmaster Tools, with pages and queries that have never been there. One of them is viewtopic.php, and I've also noticed a scary number ...
- 305
16
votes
2
answers
2k
views
I'm using a vanity country code top level domain (ccTLD), can I persuade Google to geotarget a different region?
Because I'm still living like it's 2008, I run a website with a .in TLD. The website has nothing to do we India and does not target Indian users.
Unfortunately, when I go to Google Webmaster Tools I ...
- 482
16
votes
1
answer
7k
views
Should I submit https:// and http:// in Google Search Console both with and without the www?
In my site I'm redirecting everything (http://, http://www., https://) to https://www.example.com.
Google webmaster tools says: Make sure you add both "www" and "non-www" versions for your site. Also,...
- 429
16
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Should I Include RSS Feed URLs in an XML Sitemap?
Simple question - Should I Include the RSS Feed URLs in my site's XML Sitemap?
I am NOT asking whether I should USE an RSS Feed AS an XML sitemap, but rather, should I include the URLs to the ...
- 415
15
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Number of indexed pages with "site:" search less than reported in Google Webmaster Tools
In Google webmaster tools it shows that I have 309 pages indexed, but when I search using "site:site.com" appear about 180 only (On the first page appears "about 608 results," something near the total ...
- 165
15
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Is it better to have an ErrorDocument 404 redirect back to the homepage or a standard 404 error page?
We run an ecommerce site that was setup by a third party ecommerce software provider, basic shop with product pages, basket and checkout.
The third party vendor set up the htaccess file so that if a ...
- 511
15
votes
1
answer
8k
views
How can I set Webmaster Tools to "Fetch as Google Bot" using SSL?
I have page which requires SSL so the page is https://. I want to fetch this page as google bot inside of google webmasters' diagnostic tools however Google, from what I can tell, only allows http ...
- 411
14
votes
4
answers
27k
views
Sitemaps - one per subdomain or one for the base domain?
I have more than 5 subdomains on a project, say developer, www, staff and some more, what is the best practice in creating sitemaps?
All subdomains that share a same sitemap at base domain (example....
- 255
14
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Should add my naked AND www domain as separate sites in Webmaster Tools
Just a quick question: In Google Webmaster tools I have my site set to set to www. and the naked domain.
Do I need to add and verify the site for each variant or do I just keep it as the www and use ...
- 161
14
votes
1
answer
342
views
Googlebot requesting a different verification file from my site, should I worry?
The Google-Bot seems to be hitting my site with the incorrect verification method. I have Google Webmasters set up to use a meta-tag for verification, but I am still receiving requests for the html ...
- 243
14
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Why can't Google find the structured data on most of my indexed pages?
I have a website with approximately 30,000 pages.
Google index is OK, almost all pages are indexed, but in Structured data I see only 48 pages detected for schema.org.
Schema.org is identical of whole ...
14
votes
4
answers
13k
views
How can I clear the "crawl errors" of Google webmaster tools?
How can I clear the "crawl errors" of Google webmaster tools? On my webmaster tools page, there are some "Not found" crawl errors dating back two years which I cleared up a long time ago, but they are ...
delete
13
votes
6
answers
4k
views
Is it possible that Google called our previous SEO company and asked them to remove their tags?
I have a client whose site I rebuilt several months ago. I also took over their SEO when I did this. Their previous SEO company called them today and my client sent them an email. My client passed the ...
- 2,026
13
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Google Search Console Removal Tools Consumes 20 GB of RAM
I work as a customer support specialist for a large site (millions of pages). Every day, we receive approximately 1000 removal requests from users and businesses. We remove listings from our site, ...
- 151
13
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How Can I Debug a Redirect Error in Google Search Console?
I'm getting a pesky redirect error from my Google Search Console:
Sadly, the report above doesn't give me much information as a developer about what's causing the error. When I click on Inspect URL, ...
- 231
13
votes
2
answers
7k
views
How to properly use Google Webmaster Tools (for "non-www" instead of "www")
I'm trying to use Google Webmaster Tools correctly: I don't use the www in my website's URL, but just noticed that I must have entered the www when I originally added my site to Webmaster Tools a few ...
- 233
13
votes
3
answers
7k
views
How to remove thousands of URLs from Google cache?
Google has cached 1000s of PDFs from my website which shouldn't be public. I have updated my headers, but need to remove the existing Quick View cache.
The Google webmaster tool allows me to remove ...
laura
12
votes
4
answers
10k
views
Google doesn't crawl CDN files
I've noticed that Google Webmaster Tools is reporting a lot of blocked resources in my website.
Right now all the "blocked resources" are .css, .js and images (.jpg, .png) that I serve from Cloudfront ...
- 191
11
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Do search engines perform JS rendering while crawling?
I have couple of websites recently created (~8 months) and Google is marking them as "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" or "Page with redirect" errors
How I implemented:
...
- 113
11
votes
2
answers
2k
views
How can I identify which text within a page is "too small to read" as reported by Google Search Console?
Google Search Console intermittently claims that I have "Text too small to read" and gives just URL to my page.
How can I get more specific location of supposed problem?
It is a bit more ...
11
votes
7
answers
12k
views
"Temporarily unreachable" when using fetch as Googlebot from Webmasters Tools
The page I'm trying to fetch is public. The server logs show no request. Google reports that any page on my site is "Temporarily unreachable". It won't even fetch the verification file, a static ...
- 556
11
votes
1
answer
470
views
How long does Google normally take to act on black hat SEO?
One of our competitors recently rocketed up the search rankings. A little investigation revealed it to be a clear-cut case of black hat SEO link farming. I submitted what I believe was a clear and ...
- 255
11
votes
3
answers
336
views
What constitutes a "substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links"
We engaged the services of a 3rd party SEO consultant to assist us in managing our Meta data and to write regular blogs on our site http://cyberdesignworks.com.au
Without our authorisation, the SEO ...
- 233
11
votes
2
answers
10k
views
Google Webmaster Tools tells me that robots is blocking access to the sitemap
This is my robots.txt:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Sitemap: http://www.example.org/sitemap.xml.gz
But Google Webmaster Tools tells me that robots is blocking access ...
- 345
11
votes
5
answers
16k
views
Can I invoke Google to check my robots.txt?
I read the answers in this question, but they still leave my question open: Does Google cache robots.txt?
I didn't find a way in the Google Webmaster Tools to invoke a re-download of my robots.txt.
...
- 361
11
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Why is Google Webmaster Tools crawling invalid URLS and showing 500 errors?
Google Webmaster tools is reporting 12k+ 500 errors. Eeek!
None of the URLS are valid- they all contain www.youtube.com. First, why is Google crawling these URLS if they don't exist? I supplied a ...
- 111
11
votes
2
answers
783
views
How Many Google +1's Does a Website need in order for Google WebMaster's Tools to Show Characteristics?
I have added the Google +1 Button to my website and discovered the new Social Activity section in Google WebMaster's Tools. Apparently, one of the interesting things you can learn about your audience ...
- 233
11
votes
2
answers
275
views
Does Google use Google Analytics information in its search algorithms?
Does anyone know whether Google makes use of the information it obtains via Google analytics in ranking of search results?
Does it, for instance, make use of the bounce rate for a page given a ...
- 223
11
votes
2
answers
3k
views
Understanding Google Crawl Stats
I launched my website in Jan '11 and it is indexed in Google which is great - around 300 pages of content so far. I'm trying to understand what happened the Crawl Stats around the end of June and ...
- 546
11
votes
1
answer
391
views
Major Google not follow increase since introducing 301 to site
Recently we implemented Varnish in front of our web nodes so that the backend would get some rest from time to time. Since varnish is case sensitive and our app was not we implemented
a 301 in varnish ...
- 211
10
votes
2
answers
8k
views
Why won't Webmaster Tools let me set a preferred domain? (says to verify, but it should already be)
I've got a domain that I apparently forgot to set a preferred domain for, so I just tried to do it.
Webmaster Tools instead popped up a little box:
Part of the process of setting a preferred domain ...
- 19.3k
10
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Google Search Console alert: Harmful content - Uncommon Downloads
today Google Search Console show me some alert on my website
click on link "Malware detected?" open a page with details:
but the list "Sample URLs" is empty and also "Download all samples" download ...
- 473
10
votes
2
answers
12k
views
Is it necessary to submit sitemap to www and non www?
I have submitted my website to Google Webmaster Tools with both www and with no-www. I had made the domain without www to my preffered domain and have submitted a sitemap.
My question is should I ...
- 201
10
votes
5
answers
422
views
New site not showing in Google for unique name
I have launched a site for myself and now I'm doing some simple SEO for it.
The site uses my name and it's unique and has no competition on search engines, but I don't know why Google crawlers haven'...
m0j1
10
votes
1
answer
306
views
Migrating from a wordpress.com to wordpress.org blog without harming SEO
I've had a Wordpress.com weblog for 3 years. And its pages have a good pagerank and are shown in first search results pages.
Because of the limitations, I should migrate to my own WordPress.
How to ...
- 203