Do you have some knowledge of SEO, but despite all your efforts, your WordPress site still doesn’t appear in Google search results? We’ve put together a comprehensive article to help you understand where to focus your efforts and how to improve your organic search rankings while avoiding the most serious pitfalls. Find out what Google expects from your site in order to index it and why your pages aren’t appearing in the SERP. You’ll also find several tips on how to check if your site is indexed and how to force the process as a last resort.
What's the best way to get your WordPress site to show up on Google?
To appear in Google search results, your WordPress site must adhere to three SEO pillars. These are the areas you need to focus on to maximize your chances of having your site’s pages indexed among the top search results (also known as the SERP). What are these pillars, and how can you adapt to them?
SEO Pillar #1: Technical Optimization
The technical aspects of your website must be flawless. Without the right technical setup, your site will take a long time to load and be difficult to navigate. This is a major turn-off for your visitors—and, therefore, for Google. How can you optimize the technical aspects of your WordPress site?
Pay close attention to page load times.
How long are you willing to wait for a page to load before leaving the site? Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. If your site loads quickly, users will be more likely to stay on it: your metrics will be maximized, and you’ll be able to track them in Google Analytics.
Secure your website with HTTPS.
If you host a website using the HTTP protocol, you are exposing your visitors to serious security vulnerabilities. The HTTPS protocol ensures that data exchanged between the website and the visitor remains confidential and secure.
Make your website responsive and mobile-friendly
When you consider that up to 70% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices, it’s clear why it’s crucial to make your website mobile-friendly. All the pages on your WordPress site must be responsive—that is, they must display properly on mobile devices so that navigation remains just as smooth as it is on a computer. Always keep mobile users in mind, as statistics show that not only are there more and more of them, but they’re also more likely to take action.
Pro tips: Right now, unless your niche has specific restrictions, think mobile first!
Take care of the technical back end with clean, functional robots.txt and .htaccess files
The robot.txt file is essential for specifying:
- Pages not to be indexed;
- The areas of your site reserved for each member;
- The URL(s) of the sitemap(s) for Google bots.
Without that famous robots.txt file, all URLs will be crawled by bots, even the least relevant pages. Because these pages are of little interest to visitors, crawling them prevents Google from exploring more relevant pages instead.
The .htaccess file lists permissions or restrictions on access to various elements of a website. In particular, it allows you to:
- Set up automatic redirects;
- Block access based on the characteristics of an IP address;
- Redirect HTTP to HTTPS;
- Protect access to certain files with a password.
The .htaccess file is crucial for your website's security. When configured properly, it ensures the safety of your visitors and will therefore improve your organic search engine rankings.
SEO Pillar #2: Publish Rich, Optimized Content on Your WordPress Site
Good content that Google highlights is rich, relevant, and answers a question or meets a need. What are the requirements for your site to be indexed? On every page, your content must be:
- unique;
- structured using the appropriate tags;
- properly illustrated by enriching media;
- sourced from websites recognized as authoritative in their respective fields. And if you cover sensitive topics (YMYL), you’ll need to ensure your content has even greater credibility.
SEO Pillar #3: Building Your Online Popularity
Google assigns an authority score to your site. To do this, web crawlers analyze links from other sites that point to yours. Who’s talking about you? The more reputable these “ambassadors” are, the higher the authority score the search engine will give you. The number of these links is just as important: it’s the social proof Google needs to properly index your site for a given search query.
On the other hand, be sure to build your brand recognition—the kind you establish through the quality of your products and services, without relying on your business partners. Do you appear on Google Trends? Is your company well-known in its industry?
Why isn't Google indexing the pages on my WordPress site?
After optimizing your site's performance, explore these tips to better understand why your WordPress site still isn't showing up on Google despite your efforts.
Your domain name is new; it needs to prove itself to the search engine
Have you just purchased your domain name? If so, Google places it “under observation” for three to six months. This buffer zone—also known asthe “sandbox”—may prevent your WordPress site from being indexed: it’s simply a way to verify that your activity isn’t classified as spam. Rest assured, if you follow all the tips in this article, you’ll appear in Google search results after this adjustment period.
Your WordPress site does not comply with technical optimization guidelines
Despite appearances, your WordPress site may not meet the technical criteria we listed above. Google’s algorithm prioritizes the user’s needs. Visitors should be able to access your site and navigate it comfortably with as little effort as possible.
Your SEO strategy isn't focused on the right search terms
The secret to reaching your target audience through your writing is to know them inside and out and understand the exact words they use when discussing your topic. Putting yourself in your visitor’s shoes is a difficult task when you’re immersed in your industry’s jargon!
To start, analyze the SERP for certain queries related to your topic and also look at the related results at the very bottom of the results page. Be sure to use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find search query ideas.
You need to build credibility in your field and prove that you can measure up to your competition
Why would Google rank your website higher than your competitor’s in its search results? When content and technical quality are equal, the search engine will distinguish between the two sites based on their backlink profiles. This means it will analyze the number of links pointing to your website and whether those linking sources are themselves reliable.
Your WordPress site has been penalized by Google
Before learning about best practices for indexing your WordPress site, you may have conducted tests that violate Google’s guidelines. As a result, Google may have“blacklisted”your site and is no longer indexing its pages.
It’s also possible that you’ve inherited an expired domain name that had a poor reputation with Google without your knowledge. For example, a site may be penalized because its content is over-optimized or considered spam: the causes of penalties are many and varied.
How to Check If the Pages on Your WordPress Site Are Indexed on Google
Here are two ways to check whether your site is indexed at a given time. You'll need to type these commands into the Google Search bar.
site:sitename.xyz
By entering the command site:yoursitename.com, you can see which pages on your site have been indexed by Google's crawlers. This is a very general command that lets you get a quick overview of your pages'indexing status.
allinurl:
If you regularly work on SEO for your content, then your content should be organized by topic and your URLs should be well-optimized. You can check this by entering the command allinurl:yoursitename.com.
If your website's pages appear in search results, this confirms that they are properly indexed for the keywords included in your URLs. Additionally, `inurl:yoursitename.com` is a good alternative to the `allinurl` command.
Search Google for the exact text on your pages
Want to know if the article you published three weeks ago has been crawled and indexed by search engine bots? If so, copy one or two lines of the text in question and paste them into the search bar, enclosed in quotation marks. If your article appears in the search results, it has been indexed.
Fixing Indexing Issues
If you want to fix your website'sindexing issues but don't know where to start, here are a few suggestions and tips to help you get back on track.
Check Your Sitemaps
A sitemap is like a road map for your website. It outlines the structure and organization of your pages and files. A well-structured sitemap signals to search engine crawlers that your pagesare properly organized, thereby ensuring an optimized user experience.
Check to see if your sitemaps are complete and up to date to directly improve your pages' organic search rankings. If your site doesn't have one yet, create a sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console.
Pro tips: Add a contextual HTML sitemap—that is, one where you introduce each major category with one or two lines to provide context for Google.
Ensure that your WordPress site complies with indexing rules
As we saw earlier, even the slightest error in the code of the .htaccess or robots.txt file can compromise the security or access to your entire site, so make sure these files are correct and up to date.
In addition, make sure the “noindex” tag is placed on the pages that require it (shopping cartpages, personal information pages, etc.) and that it does not block access to other pages you want to appear in the SERP.
Review SEO-related plugins
Do you use SEOpress, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and other SEO plugins on your WordPress site? Be careful, because compatibility issues between these tools can cause inconsistencies or even serious problems withthe indexing of your pages. Check the settings for these plugins and keep only the WordPress plugins you need.
Is it possible to force your WordPress site to be indexed?
Have you followed all our tips, but some pages on your site still don't appear in Google search results? Follow these suggestions to get Google's attention.
Solution #1: Search Console
Search Console is the only tool that allows you to manually requestthat Googleindex a page. Please note that there is no guarantee regarding the timeframe or outcome of your requests.
Solution #2 for getting your WordPress site indexed: the sitemap
Do you want to index multiple URLs? The best approach would certainly be to submit a complete and up-to-date sitemap so that the important URLs to becrawledare included in it.
Solution #3: Build your backlink strategy using trusted sites
Your backlink profile is a powerful toolfor indexing. If you manage to get a link from another site to the URLs you want to index, make sure that the site in question is authoritative enough in its niche for Google to see the value in following those links to your pages.
Solution #4: Use indexing platforms
If your request for manualindexing in Google Search Console is unsuccessful after several attempts or weeks, try using anindexing platform. These third-party providers promise reliable, efficient, and—above all—very fast indexing of all requested URLs. There are many providers of such services, including IndexMeNow, indexation.fr (formerly indexer.express), and others.
What are the possible reasons why my WordPress site isn't being indexed?
Are you wondering, “Why isn’t my WordPress site showing up on Google?” You’ve checked and corrected all the points discussed earlier. Have you also checked to make sure your WordPress site doesn’t have any of the following issues, which can prevent it frombeing indexed?
You are publishing duplicate content
Duplicate content is one of the worst things you can do when publishing content. To ensure your WordPress site ranks well in Google search results, it’s absolutely essential that your content be unique. Be careful, because a high-ranking site that features duplicate content can take credit for the work of lower-ranking source sites… and those sites may end up being penalized in its place for “duplicate content”!
Take the time to create unique, well-optimized reference articles. Don't have enough time to produce high-quality content? Contact our agency for editorial and/or writing assistance.
Please note that it’s not just “duplicate” content that’s harmful to your ranking— GPT-3-style auto-generated content that has been mass-produced or poorly crafted is just as likely to result in a penalty from Google.
Your backlink profile contains spammy sites and over-optimized anchor text
Carefully select all incoming and outgoing external links, and build your link profile with precision. In fact, if your WordPress site has a link profile tainted by links from spam sites—whose content is very poor or consists of over-optimized articles—it runs a high risk of being penalized.
Your WordPress site deals with a sensitive topic
We often talk about YMYL sites, which cover sensitive topics. Content that affects users’ happiness, health, or financial well-being is very delicate for Google to handle. It therefore uses the E.A.T. filter: Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness (Ttrustworthiness). To “prove your credentials to Google,” you must publish content that:
- Where you demonstrate your expertise in a concrete and solid way;
- That is shared and reposted on social media, forums, and other sites with related themes;
- Whose information is reliable and verified;
- That complies with all the best practices listed above.
Conclusion: Why Doesn't Your WordPress Site Show Up on Google, and How Can You Fix It?
If you don't understand why your website isn't indexed—or is only minimally indexed—on the world's largest search engine, here are a few possible reasons.
Possible Reasons Why Your Web Pages Aren't Being Indexed
- Your domain name is too new to be reliable;
- The technical aspects of your WordPress site are being neglected;
- Your content strategy isn't well-focused;
- Your reputation isn't strong enough in your field;
- Your website has been penalized by Google for violating itsindexing rules.
What are the solutions?
We’ve seen that SEO rests on three pillars: technical optimization, high-quality content, and a website’s authority within a given industry. With that in mind, how can you get your website’s pages indexed so they appear in search results (ideally on the first page )?
- Make sure that every aspect of your WordPress site is optimized, even the ones you might not expect;
- Follow common-sense guidelines: provide unique, optimized content; ensure your website loads quickly and responds effectively to visitors; and maintain a healthy backlink profile;
- Learn how to force Googleto index your site without coming across as spammy;
- Optimizethe indexing of each page and identify any errors so we can correct them with Google later.
Contact our agency today to analyze your website’s SEO health. We can provide you with suggestions for improvement and even work on all these pillars together so that your WordPress site finally appears on Google.
