Re: Most of my website pages are not indexing

Most of my website pages are not indexing

hala99
Excursionist
20 0 4

I've observed that a significant portion of my website's pages isn't being indexed. Specifically, 182 pages are experiencing indexing issues due to a 'Blocked due to other 4xx issue.' I'm quite perplexed and struggling to understand why this problem has arisen and how I can go about resolving it

 

Screenshot 2023-10-05 210028.png

Reply 1 (1)

Moira
Shopify Staff (Retired)
2118 231 341

Hey @hala99,

 

The 'Blocked due to other 4xx issue' typically refers to a variety of HTTP status codes that indicate a problem with a page or resource. These issues can prevent Google from indexing your pages. Here's how you can diagnose and resolve this issue:

 

  • Identify the Specific 4xx Error: Use Google Search Console's Coverage report to identify the specific 4xx error affecting your pages. Common 4xx errors include 404 (Not Found), 410 (Gone), 403 (Forbidden), and 429 (Too Many Requests).
  • Check Your Robots.txt File: Ensure that your robots.txt file isn't blocking Googlebot from crawling your pages. You can test this using the Robots.txt Tester in Google Search Console.
  • Check Your Page URLs: Make sure your URLs are correctly formatted and do not contain any spaces, brackets, or special characters that could cause crawling issues.
  • Check Your Meta Tags: Ensure that none of your pages contain the 'noindex' meta tag, which would prevent Google from indexing them.
  • Check for Crawl Errors: Use the Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console to check for any crawl errors.
  • Check Your Sitemap: Make sure your sitemap is up to date and correctly formatted. Submit it to Google via the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console.
  • Fix Broken Links: Use a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify and fix any broken links on your site.
  • Resubmit to Google: Once you've made the necessary changes, ask Google to re-crawl and re-index your pages using the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.

 

Remember, changes may not reflect immediately in Google Search Console. It can take a few days to a few weeks for Google to crawl and index your pages.

Moira | Social Care @ Shopify
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