The crawled page is not indexed: why did this happen, what to do about it?
Everyone who develops and promotes websites probably knows how serious a problem it can be to have pages on a resource that are not marked by search robots. So, if you find the “Discovered Currently Not Indexed” error, then the first completely reasonable and well-founded solution would be to simply delete it. But how correct will this decision be? Most likely, if this page was created, it means it carries some usefulness for the audience, for your business. This means that it is important that search robots index it and allow it to be returned in response to relevant user requests.
So what to do in this situation? To delete or not to delete? What exactly is the “Discovered Currently Not Indexed” error? and how does it affect online sales? How can you understand why search engines checked a page but did not add it to the index? What could be the reason for this? How and what methods and actions can correct the situation? Is it possible to optimize a site before indexing in such a way as to minimize the occurrence of this error? Now let's try to answer all these questions in more detail.
What is this “Discovered Currently Not Indexed” error?
Now we will talk directly about the search engine Google ( ranking factors), but in principle all other search engines that exist on the market today are designed in a similar way. So, in order to track problems that arise directly on the site itself and related to the visibility of pages in organic results, specialized tools are used. Since we are talking about the Google search engine, Google Search Console is used here.
One of the most important indicators that are displayed in the reports of this tool will be the indexing status. The fact is that it is he who best reflects the quality and efficiency of the resource as a whole. It shows how many pages of your site have been indexed and, accordingly, bring traffic, and how many are literally “collecting dust.” in the database and without having any impact on the visibility of the portal as a whole in the search engine. It is quite logical and understandable that the higher the indexing status, the more efficient your resource will work. And even more people will reach it through organic traffic. Accordingly, the level of sales of your goods and services will be higher.
An error such as “Discovered Currently Not Indexed” received from Google Search Console will indicate that the program has detected an unindexed page. And this is already a reason to think about why this happened and take appropriate measures. But fixing this problem is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. The thing is that the tool does not provide accurate information about why this happened. This means that you do not know the reason why your page is not included in the index, which greatly complicates the work to correct it. In fact, there can be a lot of errors that result in search bots not indexing a particular page. If you analyze the official documentation from the Google search engine, then for the most part you will see the same answer:
“The page has been crawled, but not yet indexed.” What does it mean? Yes, the fact is that search bots went through your page, checked it, but did not allow it to appear in the search results, that is, they did not add it to the index. In principle, there is a chance that in the foreseeable future it will still be indexed. But no one can say for sure whether this will happen or whether it will remain forever in limbo. But at the same time, the system does not recommend resending the scanning request to certain pages.
If a similar situation occurs on your site, then in the report on the last crawl from Google Search Console you will see an empty column with the date. This will indicate that Google has delayed working on the site for some time, having detected the insufficient capacity of the selected server and giving you the opportunity to refine your resource in order to increase its availability.
What conclusions can you draw from this? The only thing that is reliably clear is that the page was not included in the index. Nothing else. Let's look into this issue further.
Should I delete crawled but not indexed pages?
Today there is a fairly impressive group of web specialists who are confident that the complete removal from the site of a page that was crawled by a search bot but was not included in the index — this is a mandatory measure. They believe that such an action can improve the performance of the site as a whole. There will definitely be those who remember what crawling is budget, namely that a one-time visit by a bot to a target site implies restrictions on the volume of scanning. That is, no matter how many pages there are on your site, only a certain number will be indexed. It turns out that you worked hard, put dozens of pages on the site in a couple of days, but you won’t see them all at once in the search results. The fact is that scanning will be carried out in several stages and to understand with what frequency search crawlers will visit your resource, alas, no one will answer you for sure.
Is this really true? It is difficult to give a definite answer here, because the topic of crawling budget is quite specific. The fact is that the Google search engine officially states that, in principle, there is no such thing as a crawling budget. The fact that some pages of the site are indexed today, others tomorrow, and still others in a month depends solely on the technical capabilities of the server and certain nuances of the bots’ operation, which no one publicly declares.
Also, we should not forget here that Google’s ability to store data volumes is very limited. Physically, a search engine cannot save absolutely all the pages that are currently presented on the global network. These are unrealistic amounts of information. That is why, in the work process, crawlers have to be very, very scrupulous and picky in order to select from the entire volume of pages on your site those that, in their opinion, will be of the highest quality and useful specifically for promoting your resource. And one of the most important parameters that is taken into account by bots in this process — so it is useful for the audience.
What conclusions should be drawn from this? Firstly, the fact that the presence of hundreds of pages on the site — This is not a guarantee that they will get to the top of search results. There is a high probability that most of them will not be indexed by the system at all, that is, they will not be displayed by users in response to their organic queries. And here it is worth thinking about whether it is worth spending time, effort and money on creating such a huge website? But it’s one thing if you are faced with the task of developing and promoting a resource for a small company, and quite another thing if you are developing a large online store or marketplace.
By the way, here you can read in more detail about why you need site indexing and how to check whether your pages are in the index.
Is it worth using information compression?
Condensation of information posted on the website — a current solution for really large sites. The fact is that creating separate product cards for each product specification that is presented on your pages — this is what will ultimately lead to the emergence of a huge number of clone pages. Their description will be almost identical with a number of minor differences. And here, a completely reasonable and justified decision would be to place similar items on one page, providing here the opportunity for potential buyers to choose individual product parameters for themselves. So, for example, if you sell coffee, you can devote one page to one brand, and then provide sorting depending on the strength of the coffee, degree of grinding (bean, for brewing in a cup, regular), degree of roasting, packaging volume, etc. As a result, you will significantly reduce the number of pages that search bots will need to index.
But before you move on to compacting your pages, you must understand that:
- Such a decision in itself does not have a direct impact on improving site indexing performance. But the overall impression of search bots will be more positive, and the speed of their work with your resource — higher. As a result, you will be able to see your pages in search results faster, which means your products and services will become available to the audience earlier.
- It is important to evaluate how condensed your catalog pages will be for your audience. If users have to search for a long time for the products they need, there is a high probability that they will simply leave your resource. That is, it is important not to overdo it and not degrade the overall quality and convenience for users.
- That is, when thinking about whether to condense the pages of the site or not, you should first of all focus simply on ensuring the high quality of your site. Think about what parameters will affect the bot’s performance while scanning your pages. Your main task is to make the resource so that it is really convenient to use for both people and search bots.
That is, think about whether it is really necessary to create hundreds of pages for similar products if you can group them and think of a convenient filter system for people? But at the same time, it is important to think through everything down to the smallest detail, so that after viewing your page people receive all the information they need so that it is truly correct and reliable. Yes, such work will require a little more time from you, but the efficiency of such a solution will be higher.
So why bots don’t index pages: key reasons
We have already said above that there are many reasons why your pages are not indexed by search crawlers. But now we will highlight 2 main points that are most often encountered in practice. That is, if a search bot identified your page, scanned it, but did not add it to the index, then there is a high probability that the reason for this — this:
- Insufficient server capacity.
- Low overall quality of the site.
Let's consider both of these points in more detail. But let us immediately note that, most likely, you missed something when launching your site and bots do not index it because they do not consider it worthy of adding this or that page to the search results.
Server power limits
Cases when the server is unable to process a large volume of requests — This is not uncommon. And this phenomenon has a direct impact on the speed at which the pages of your site will be crawled. In addition, you must understand that search bots will not load the entire channel in any case, because in this case there will be interruptions in the availability of the site, which will have a negative impact on user satisfaction: they simply will not have access to your content.
In addition, when scanning sites, one unspoken rule applies: the larger the site, the greater the number of search bots allocated to work with it. In parallel with this, the number of queries running simultaneously will increase. We must not forget that although we are talking about the Google search engine, in parallel with it, there are a huge number of other systems operating on the market today, which in turn can also scan your site. It turns out that a large site, such as an online store or marketplace, will be visited simultaneously by hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of guards. And such an influx will automatically reduce the server’s ability to process incoming requests.
How to avoid such a problem? Here you need to regularly check how your server works, that is, its log, and constantly monitor peak loads. Such information will allow you to clearly understand whether the current capabilities of this machine are sufficient to ensure not only the operation of bots, but also stable access of the target audience to your content, catalog pages, etc.
Low overall quality of the site
This is another reason that search bots don't want to index your site. We have already said that in the process of indexing a site, search bots check it not only for compliance with their internal criteria, but also how convenient it will be for the target audience, and determine its usefulness. That is, at the crawling stage, Google assigns certain ratings to all pages applying for indexing. That is, if you are faced with the task of attracting organic traffic to the site, then significant attention should be paid to the quality of the site. Practice shows that if there is at least one section of low quality on your site, it will automatically drag all the pages down with it. As a result, your site will be displayed as low quality in the search engine.
What does a search engine take into account when determining the quality of a site? There are three key aspects here:
- The content of the text content and its compliance with the description proposed in the tags, as well as the queries entered by users. That is, the material must be meaningful, competent and professionally written. But the most important thing is that it benefits the target audience. Ideally, make sure that a person goes to your website, reads the article and receives all the answers to his questions on this topic.
- The structure of the page itself and the entire site. Again, user friendliness is the primary consideration here. He should easily navigate the pages, move from one block to another, find the necessary information literally with a couple of clicks on an intuitive level. The material itself should be presented in a structured manner, highlighting headings, subheadings, lists, and main ideas. This will help both the user and the search bot to navigate the site well, which will guarantee a high quality rating.
- General design. The page itself should be attractive and concise. It should harmoniously combine both text and graphic content. Additional videos may be used where appropriate. The design itself should complement the text content.
Another point that we would like to draw your attention to is that the process of determining the quality of a website is quite long-term. When working with large sites, it can take several months. This is especially true for fairly complex and narrow topics, because they require a high level of expertise. In addition, the search engine can revise the ratings from time to time, checking whether work is being done with the site, whether changes are being made to the content, whether they make the site better or, conversely, worse. All this indicates that those who would like to not only bring their website to the top of search results, but keep it there for a long period of time, need not to relax, but to work hard on their portal.
Is it possible to do this to minimize the likelihood of a site not being included in the index? In principle, it is possible if you optimize it before scanning. What needs to be done for this?
We optimize the site before indexing correctly
Surely everyone who has encountered website promotion has probably noticed how fastidious and meticulous search bots are at work. They check literally every element of your page, evaluate it, and notice even the smallest flaws. Therefore, if you want to make sure that your site really gets indexed, quickly and without any special comments, approach the actual creation of the resource itself very responsibly. To do this, you need to consider a number of aspects:
- Think over the main menu of the site to the smallest detail. All the most important sections of your resource should be collected here. This is what improves the quality of user experience, allowing the audience to quickly navigate your resource and find the information, products or services they need. For a number of resources, it is recommended to add links to main materials to the main menu.
- Take care of internal linking. This is what will allow you to connect individual pages of your resource with each other. To implement it, you will only need to use links to your materials, which will thematically correspond to the context of your content. Thanks to this, it will be easier for the search bot to navigate the structure of your site and, accordingly, index the maximum number of pages, and users will be able to find the maximum amount of information for themselves directly while moving around the site, rather than returning back to the search engine and entering additional, clarifying questions.
- Fix weak text content. In this case, we are talking about pages of your website that contain practically no information useful to the user. The algorithms by which modern search engines operate are constantly in the process of improvement. If earlier on the contacts page information was presented as concisely as possible, literally a phone number, email, contact in one or another messenger, today search engines will write it down in this category, namely, they will mark this page as weak content. To remedy this situation, you need to think about what information you can add to this section of your site to improve its quality from the point of view of search engines. But you shouldn’t clutter it with empty, uninformative content either. Think about what information would be useful to your audience. Alternatively, you can add here questions that clients are most often interested in, a short preview of the department employees who will answer them, etc.
Conclusions
To summarize the material presented, we note that in any case, working on promoting your business, in particular its online representation — This is a rather complex and extensive process. Today, it is not enough to create a beautiful website, display products on its online showcases and wait for hundreds, and then thousands of customers, to come running to you for purchases. You cannot do without comprehensive promotion. This is the only way to convey information about your products or services to potential buyers and interest them. Particular attention is paid to collecting semantics, because it is for these queries that search bots will transfer the user audience to your website.
So how can you minimize the chance that bots will crawl your pages but not add it to the index? The answer here is clear — make sure that search bots want to index it, namely, think about its quality, including from the point of view of a potential buyer. Only in this case will you be able to not only promote your website in organic search results, but also get a loyal mass of customers who will come to you again and again for goods and services, and recommend you to their friends and acquaintances.
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