Causes of Articles Not Showing on Google (Google Deindex)
Google Deindex-Have you ever noticed that your article or page is not showing up in Google search results? If so, of course, you have the potential to lose a lot of traffic or traffic to the website, especially if the article or page is on the first page of Google search results for popular keywords.
Currently, Google is the most widely used search engine in the world, this also applies in Indonesia.
If your article has submitted a URL to Google, then the actual website or article will appear in Google search results.
But the fact is, sometimes the article suddenly doesn’t appear on Google even though it was previously featured. That’s because Google deindexes the article so it doesn’t appear in the Google search engine.
Therefore, in this article, we will cuss the causes of articles not appearing on Google and how to overcome them. Listen to the end.
Table of Contents
What is Google Deindex?
Google deindex is a condition where your article, page, or website is not indexed by Google, which results in the article or website not appearing in Google search results.
Even if you try to search with various keywords, the article will not appear in the search engine. You can try to check by adding site: in front of the URL. site:domainname.com/url-articles.
This has the potential to make your website lose substantial traffic which can result in losses for your business.
Google does this actually to provide the best experience for users when surfing the internet using Google, so users who access an article or website can be sure that the website is not problematic.
This can Several things can cause this, because the website or article violates Google’s rules, such as duplicate content until there is an indication of malware on the website. To know more about the causes of Google’s deindex, please read the next section.
Causes of Articles Not Appearing on Google and How to Solve It
Here are the causes of articles not showing on Google or Google’s deindex that you should avoid. If you have already done one of these things, there is no need to worry because we will also explain how to overcome it or how prevent it.
Wrong Visibility Configuration
In WordPress itself, there is a configuration to set the visibility of the website in search engines. Your website can be set to avoid search engine crawling which causes the website not to appear in Google search results.
This configuration function is used by developers so as not to be disturbed by traffic from search results when the website is being built, repaired, or creating a trial website.
Well, maybe the developer forgot to uncheck this configuration again after building the website or fix it so that Google can’t crawl the website.
How to overcome:
If you are a WordPress user, please login first to the admin page. Then open the menu bar Settings – Reading. Make sure that the “Search Engine Visibility” section is unchecked.
Duplicate Content
If you don’t know, there are 2 types of duplicate content, the first is duplicate content from your website and duplicate content from other people’s websites.
For this first type, you are indicated to create an article or page on a website with the same content. This usually happens when you want to update content using a new URL. You are not allowed to use two different URLs for the same content.
The second type is copying almost all content from other people’s websites and publishing it on their websites. This can be called copy-pasting and This is strictly not allowed by Google. Google itself can detect and distinguish which content is self-made and which content is duplicated or copied from other people’s websites.
How to overcome:
There are 2 solutions or ways in this case.
- Redirects
Redirect is a transfer of access from a domain to a new domain. There are 2 types of redirects, namely, Redirect 301 and Redirect 302.
Redirect 301 is redirecting the old URL to a new URL permanently, and Redirect 302 is redirecting the old URL to a new temporary URL.
In this case, you can use a 301 redirect. This 301 redirect will signal to the Google search engine so that Google will crawl for new URLs.
You can easily redirect using a plugin like RankMath or Redirection.
- Create Your Content
If you want to avoid this duplicate content problem that causes articles or websites not to appear on Google, create your content. Make original content that is interesting and has good quality.
Duplicate content or copying content from other people’s websites is something you should avoid and don’t do since you first created a website or blog. Doing so will signal to Google that your website is not authentic and that it may be difficult to get the best position on Google.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is one of the old SEO techniques that are no longer worth using. The way it works is to write an article of about 300-500 words and in the article insert keywords that are not reasonable or excessive, such as 60 keywords, and hope to get a position on the first page of searches for these keywords.
Currently, Google already has systems and algorithms that can assess content, whether the content is entered into keywords improperly or is still in a reasonable stage. Please note that content or articles that are placed in too many keywords will result in the article getting a bad score on Google and the worst possibility is that the article does not appear on Google or gets deindexed.
How to overcome:
To overcome this, you can use keyword variations that match the main keyword. For example, if your main keyword is “How to Make a Website” then you can enter keyword variations that are still related to these keywords such as “How to Make a Website”, “Easy Steps to Create a Website” and others. You need to include a variety of keywords so that your article looks more natural and avoids being deindexed by Google.
Too Little Content
Why if you create too little content it can resulting in your article not appearing on Google or being deindexed on the website? This happens because currently, Google is always doing updates that aim to make users comfortable.
One of the things that make users comfortable is that they can find complete and useful information. So Google made a system that the content created too little is considered to be of low quality. Ideally, make original content of at least 1800 words.
How to overcome:
If you have too little content or articles, we recommend that you add more content as completely as possible. You can also use supporting media such as images, infographics, videos, and others.
Cloaking
If you don’t know, cloaking is redirecting Google users to a URL or website that is different from the URL that was clicked on in the search results. For example, if you have a travel website, but when someone clicks on your website on the Google search engine, that person is directed to a gambling website or something else.
This is usually due to hacker attacks. Hackers usually do cloaking or target websites that have high traffic to direct visitors to websites that hackers want.
How to overcome :
To overcome this, scan all of your website pages using Google Search Console. You can find errors or problematic pages on your website using Google Search Console and then fix them.
However, if you use WordPress, you can use security plugins from WordPress such as WordFence and SecuPress.
Unnatural Links
Link building is one of the SEO strategies commonly used by someone to increase the reputation of the website. The more quality backlinks your website has, the higher the chances of your website being on the first page of search results.
However, it should be noted that choose backlinks from quality websites and do not use just any links. You need to think about the quality of the website, reputation, and others. If you backlink with a website whose website reputation is not clear, it can be fatal. One of them is the website or article does not appear on Google.
How to overcome:
To overcome this, you can check on Google Search Console which websites provide backlinks to your website. You can find websites that are indicated to be of poor quality. If you find this, immediately disavow it before it will result in your website not appearing on Google.
You need to avoid types of websites such as Private Blog Network (PBN), Directory Links, and Website Link Farming to be used as a source of backlinks.
Expired Domain
If your website’s domain has expired and you do not renew the domain, then the domain will be automatically deleted and your website will no longer appear on Google or Google will deindex.
How to fix it:
Make a note of the date when your domain must be renewed such as on a calendar or cellphone. However, usually, the domain and hosting provider will provide an email alert when it’s time to renew your domain.
Server Down
If the server you use for your website is down for a long period, then this can result in your website disappearing from Google search results.
How to overcome:
Use a hosting provider who is experienced in their field and has the best uptime. You can install uptime monitoring tools so that every time the server you use goes down, you get a notification.
These are uptime monitoring tools that you can use: Uptime Robot, Pingdom, and Uptime.
Google Algorithm Change
If you don’t follow the development of Google’s algorithm, then this can cause the website to be deindexed by Google. For example, 10 years ago the keyword stuffing technique could still be used, but now if you do this it can result in your website or article not appearing in Google search results.
How to overcome:
If any of your articles are not by the latest Google algorithm updates, immediately change and update the article. You need to always be aware of updates from the Google algorithm.
Therefore you can read articles that discuss this, for example, Search Engine Journal, and Alexa Blog.
Website Indicated There Is Malware
The last clause of the article not appearing on Google is the presence of malware on the website. If there is malware on your website or there are hackers who spread malicious software, then it can harm your website and visitors.
Therefore, Google certainly does not stay silent and lets users experience bad things when accessing the search engine. Then Google’s steps can make your website not appear in search results. Generally, visitors will get a warning page if they visit a website that is indicated to contain malware.
How to overcome:
You can see which pages on your website are indicated for malware by using Google Search Console. After that, you can find out the cause and try to fix it. To avoid this, make sure you use SSL for the website.
Conclusion
That’s the discussion about why articles don’t appear or can be called Google deindex. If you feel that the article on the website suddenly doesn’t appear on Google, please try to check the points that we mentioned above.
To speed up Google’s index of articles or pages, you can copy your URL and ask Google to index the URL in Google Search Console. How to enter the URL Inspection menu – Enter the URL and press the request indexing button.
Thank you for listening to the end, hopefully, it will be useful for all.
About The Author
