Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
My brand name has 2 words but Google only indexing as 1 word. Is there a fix?
-
Hi all...I'm at a loss. I've never had this happen. Google only shows pages of my site when I search the brand name as one word.
When I Google the site as one word BrandBrand- it only shows my blog page and about us page plus Twitter and Facebook on page 1. The homepage does not show up at all.
When I Google the site as two words Brand Brand - My Facebook page is on page 1 but nothing else. The homepage isn't showing up at all.
When I search both words on Bing and Yahoo both are indexing it as two words and shows on page 1.
Any ideas?
-
@TexasBlogger Here are a few potential reasons for the issue:
Google's indexing: Sometimes, Google's indexing algorithms may take time to properly crawl and index your website. It's possible that your homepage hasn't been fully indexed yet.
Brand name competition: If your brand name consists of common words or phrases, it could face tougher competition in search results. Other websites or brands with similar names might be overshadowing your homepage.
Search engine preferences: Different search engines can have variations in their algorithms and indexing processes. It's possible that Bing and Yahoo are interpreting your brand name as two separate words, while Google treats it as a single word. This can affect the way your homepage appears in their search results.
Website optimization: Double-check your homepage's optimization to ensure that it contains relevant keywords, meta tags, and descriptive content. Make sure your homepage is properly optimized for search engines to understand its relevance.
Backlinks and authority: Building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites can improve your website's authority and visibility in search results. Consider reaching out to relevant websites or industry influencers for potential collaborations or partnerships.
To address these issues, you can try the following steps:
Submit your website's sitemap to Google Search Console to ensure that it is properly indexed.
Continue to optimize your homepage by including relevant keywords, improving meta tags, and enhancing the content.
Consider enhancing your website's overall SEO strategy, including link-building efforts, to improve its visibility and authority.
If feasible, consider consulting with an SEO specialist who can analyze your website's specific situation and provide tailored recommendations.
-
Right but most pages of my site have been indexed. They're not ranking well yet and that's what takes time. The indexing happens quickly, it's the ranking that takes time.
I appreciate your responses, though.
-
In my experience it can even take 2 to 4 months really. It's why i focus more on domains with a longer age then newly registered ones. I have domains of over 10 year old in relation of registration and those index in just one complete night if i renew the website. Just saying.
-
Great. I'll wait it out then. The reason I reached out is I've seen aged sites with this same issue. Let's see what happens in a few weeks. Thanks!
-
New sites are damped to prevent quick spammers launching up domains on to go. So it takes a while or some time for google to release that and start listing you actively.
-
It's a new site. It's doesn't list at all...I checked through page 14 with the two words. But it does with one. There are no backlinks yet as it's new. But it should still be showing results for the brand name search.
-
Site age? Incoming links? Did you submit the website to even Google?
Does it list at all? Like page 2 or 3 etc? If thats the case, i'd suggest inspecting your incoming link profile and adjust links accordingly. It might be considered spammy.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should I "no-index" two exact pages on Google results?
Hello everyone, I recently started a new wordpress website and created a static homepage. I noticed that on Google search results, there are two different URLs landing on same content page. I've attached an image to explain what I saw. Should I "no-index" the page url? Google url.JPG In this picture, the first result is the homepage and I try to rank for that page. The last result is landing on same content with different URL. So, should I no-index last result as shown in image?
Technical SEO | | amanda59640 -
Google is still indexing the old domain a year after 301 redirects are put in place
Hi there, You might have experienced this before but for me this is the first. A client of mine moved from domain A (www.domainA.com) to domain B (www.domainB.com). 301 redirects are all in place for over a year. But the old domain is still showing in Google when you search for "site:domainA.com" The HTTP Header check shows this result for the URL https://www.domainA.com/company/cookie-policy.aspx HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently =>
Technical SEO | | iQi
Cache-Control => private
Content-Length => 174
Content-Type => text/html; charset=utf-8
Location => https://www.domain_B_.com/legal/cookie-policy
Server => Microsoft-IIS/10.0
X-AspNetMvc-Version => 5.2
X-AspNet-Version => 4.0.30319
X-Powered-By => ASP.NET
Date => Fri, 15 Mar 2019 12:01:33 GMT
Connection => close Does the redirect look wrong? The change of address request was made on Google Console when the website was moved over a year ago. Edit: Checked the domainA.com on bing and it seems that its not indexed, and replaced with domainB.com, which is the right. Just Google is indexing the old domain! Please let me know your thoughts on why this is happening. Best,0 -
Google has deindexed a page it thinks is set to 'noindex', but is in fact still set to 'index'
A page on our WordPress powered website has had an error message thrown up in GSC to say it is included in the sitemap but set to 'noindex'. The page has also been removed from Google's search results. Page is https://www.onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk/bad-credit-mortgages/how-to-get-a-mortgage-with-bad-credit/ Looking at the page code, plus using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs crawlers, the page is very clearly still set to 'index'. The SEO plugin we use has not been changed to 'noindex' the page. I have asked for it to be reindexed via GSC but I'm concerned why Google thinks this page was asked to be noindexed. Can anyone help with this one? Has anyone seen this before, been hit with this recently, got any advice...?
Technical SEO | | d.bird0 -
How can I get a photo album indexed by Google?
We have a lot of photos on our website. Unfortunately most of them don't seem to be indexed by Google. We run a party website. One of the things we do, is take pictures at events and put them on the site. An event page with a photo album, can have anywhere between 100 and 750 photo's. For each foto's there is a thumbnail on the page. The thumbnails are lazy loaded by showing a placeholder and loading the picture right before it comes onscreen. There is no pagination of infinite scrolling. Thumbnails don't have an alt text. Each thumbnail links to a picture page. This page only shows the base HTML structure (menu, etc), the image and a close button. The image has a src attribute with full size image, a srcset with several sizes for responsive design and an alt text. There is no real textual content on an image page. (Note that when a user clicks on the thumbnail, the large image is loaded using JavaScript and we mimic the page change. I think it doesn't matter, but am unsure.) I'd like that full size images should be indexed by Google and found with Google image search. Thumbnails should not be indexed (or ignored). Unfortunately most pictures aren't found or their thumbnail is shown. Moz is giving telling me that all the picture pages are duplicate content (19,521 issues), as they are all the same with the exception of the image. The page title isn't the same but similar for all images of an album. Example: On the "A day at the park" event page, we have 136 pictures. A site search on "a day at the park" foto, only reveals two photo's of the albums. 3QolbbI.png QTQVxqY.jpg mwEG90S.jpg
Technical SEO | | jasny0 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
How to check if an individual page is indexed by Google?
So my understanding is that you can use site: [page url without http] to check if a page is indexed by Google, is this 100% reliable though? Just recently Ive worked on a few pages that have not shown up when Ive checked them using site: but they do show up when using info: and also show their cached versions, also the rest of the site and pages above it (the url I was checking was quite deep) are indexed just fine. What does this mean? thank you p.s I do not have WMT or GA access for these sites
Technical SEO | | linklander0 -
How To Cleanup the Google Index After a Website Has Been HACKED
We have a client whose website was hacked, and some troll created thousands of viagra pages, which were all indexed by Google. See the screenshot for an example. The site has been cleaned up completely, but I wanted to know if anyone can weigh in on how we can cleanup the Google index. Are there extra steps we should take? So far we have gone into webmaster tools and submitted a new site map. ^802D799E5372F02797BE19290D8987F3E248DCA6656F8D9BF6^pimgpsh_fullsize_distr.png
Technical SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
Keywords in file names vs folder names
We understand the value of a keyword phrase included in the URL. Is there more value to having that phrase in the folder name of the URL or the file name or does it matter? Example: http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design.php or http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design/ Which is best? Thanks, Wick Smith
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0