Any 2nd chances on getting served?

indexed but not getting served on search

[andrewfez]

I have a few articles that at one point were both indexed and getting served, as evidenced by searching and by the site:(my website) operator.

Now, they are still indexed on Search Console, but no longer being served (no longer available through searching or site:(my website) operator).

I think the reason some are no longer visible is that they were too slow to load due to large picture sizes. Or that they were a lot more informationally dense than the top several articles for my keyword phrase (hence a lot more words than what google thinks is needed, even though I'm covering the topic better than the big corporate sites).

I compressed my pics down to a smaller size and pared down the word count somewhat and asked for re-indexing. Also made sure there were links to these articles from one of my main pages.

I'm still not getting served. Does Google ever give any second chances to non-served articles, or is that it? I just have to write another version of the article.

I've noticed when Google won't index a spammy type article (affiliate links to multiple produces on the same page), even taking all the links out, and just using the page as an informational page, won't fix the indexing issue. Like Google won't give second chances to articles it doesn't initially like.

[edited by: not2easy at 11:53 am (utc) on Oct 28, 2022]
[edit reason] disabled smileys for readability [/edit]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

The site operator is not the best source of indexing data. When I look up my sites they are missing a lot of pages that get traffic from Google every day. It was also reported some time ago that 91% of indexed web pages get no traffic at all.

SEO optimizations can help, some more than others. It's not really about 2nd chances, just making the page better at serving the user intent is usually all it takes. The better the intent is served the more good user experiences you'll get, the more sticky the page becomes and the better it performs in search.

Make sure your title is clear as to what a person will find if they visit and make sure the content delivers what the user expects to find. The rest can help but won't overcome a bad user experience rating.

I can confirm Google gives second chances all the time if a site cleans up and remains clean for a good amount of time. It takes months, at least one core update, and sometimes takes years. It also takes helpful content that satisfies real people.

[not2easy]

The site: search operator is not a tool to show all the indexed pages of a domain (and it does not use parentheses). Google made some changes to their search operators a few years ago so things that were once considered a reliable tool became less useful. The site: operator is one of those that still returns some pages of a domain, but not all the indexed pages. You can learn more about Google's search operators and their purpose and syntax from Google: [support.google.com...]

More discussions on that topic here:
2020 - [webmasterworld.com...]
2021 - [webmasterworld.com...]

[andrewfez]

Okay thanks guys! Yeah, I think I'll just make them as searcher friendly as possible, resubmit to GSC, and see what happens next update. I appreciate the info!

It's weird because one of my indexed pages has a pretty long tail keyword. When I type the title in Google Search, it returns 3 pages of articles, none of which are mine, even if I expand the search to include duplicate articles. It's basically certain wildflowers that can be found in a particular state park near me. My H2's are the different hiking trails in the park, and my H3's are the names of the flowers with pics. None of my H2s or H3s have my keyword, and none of my copy really has it, just my alternate text in the pics.

When I do a search, All Trails and the big operations return garbage like 'Best Wildflowers in (the state park in question)', but which don't actually have any wildflowers info in their articles. I was trying to fill this informational gap on the web and be helpful, but as I mentioned in my first post, I really need to get my pic sizes down since the post has so many pics in it. Not really user friendly if it takes a long time to load.

Take care,
A Fez

[RedBar]

@andrewfez

How old is this website?

[andrewfez]

It's a new site but in an already saturated niche. Around 80 articles. 1 article in the top 3 of Google for my keyword. 20 articles in slots 4-10 on Google for my keywords. 19 backlinks. DR of 4.

The article I was referencing did finally make its way onto Search Console but only got a handful of clicks. It's there, just not anything people are searching for in high volume.

I still needed to write the article though to gain authority. But these days, now that I'm out of the Google sandbox, I go for high volume keywords. So my next 80 articles should perform better than my first 80.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Did it lose a lot of traffic in Google updates during the 2nd half of last year?

[andrewfez]

Hello,

No, it gained traffic, because it's a new site. I've built topical authority on a few sub categories. Google tends to like that.