Google Didn't Start Indexing My Site for 5 Months... and It Was My Fault

It's so frustrating, but sometimes, Google just doesn't index your site content. Blog posts that you spent hours, days, even weeks on, just get left out, and never become a search result. Join me as I share the top reasons why Google may not be indexing your content and come back for the follow-up videos showing exactly what to do about it!
In this video, learn how to figure out if your content has been indexed or not: • Figure Out EXACTLY Wha...
And in this video, learn how to get your content indexed if it's not: • This is How to Get You...
Have a question or idea for a video? Maybe you'd like your site, or a specific article reviewed in a video. Let me know here: forms.office.com/r/9VYNvRUzaN
Check out Project 24: incomeschool.com/project24/?r...
Project 24 is our membership program that teaches you how to work toward replacing your current income with income from websites and KZbin channels in 24 months.
Also check out our stupid fast and crazy functional Wordpress theme, Acabado. incomeschool.com/acabado
Have you seen us on Instagram yet? Add us to see what we're doing behind the scenes: / income.school
Project 24 is a product of Income School LLC. Results mentioned are not typical. The trademark “Project 24” refers to the goal of some people to create a successful business in 24 months, but is not a promise or guarantee of that success. Many online businesses fail because, like any business, it requires hard work, skill, and dedication. Before making business decisions, consult financial and legal professionals licensed in your jurisdiction.

[@IncomeSchool]

Have you ever run into this issue where Google didn’t index your content even though plenty of time had passed? Did you ever figure out why? I did. We made one of these mistakes, totally by accident, and one of our sites didn’t start getting indexed for 5 months! I sincerely hope that this video and the ones to come help you get your content indexed and ranking much more quickly! Don’t miss the next video on how to see what content Google has indexed kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIHJgIBmntinlZY In the meantime, don’t forget that commenting on this video enters you into the Income School comment contest. Learn what that means here (incomeschool.com/2021-comment-contest/).

[@carladams9345]

I wrote 32 articles on a new site in July 2020. Only about 18 were indexed. I rewrote them and submitted them to search console in February 2021. So far so good.

[@rickynave]

How long did it take for your other articles to be indexed after you submitted them? I'm having a similar problem and it's been a week since submitting them, with their current status as "discovered - currently not indexed (or crawled)"

[@quityourdayjob8640]

GREAT series Ricky. I haven’t noticed any of my content not being indexed but will certainly check

[@ionceexisted]

Thank you so much for this video- I was seriously considering rage-quitting my blogging and KZbin quest until I discovered this video. I hope you guys continue to update and keep us posted on this.

[@shortscut7614]

How is the progress bruh?

[@insight-nenasa]

Hi Ricky, for some ofmy URLs under coverage, it says "Discovered - Currently not Indexed". Should I get worried?

[@jpb4734]

I was the person who didn’t get indexed for 8 months on many articles. I could share a few of the examples with you if it would be helpful

[@IncomeSchool]

Sure! If you want to use the feedback form I link to in the description you can send me any info you want without posting it here openly.

[@yussifmohammedalhassan346]

That is a good topic. Sometimes I feel some of my articles are not indexed because they are not ranking. I have tried severally and is tempted to just abandon them. Thanks for this series. I hope to be able to find solution to my problem.

[@creamnchery]

Have you sent Google your sitemap? This is very important fir them to index your site + everything he said on the video

[@rachelschreck2683]

This is great timing, thanks! I've had pretty good luck getting indexed quickly, but one post is nowhere to be found on rankings. Time to figure out why (hopefully)!

[@dimanazzz]

Thanks for bringing this question up! Got one of sites stuck with no-index problem, hope to hear in these videos a solution or at least a new method to try.

[@lukerowley67]

Thanks for this Ricky! Great stuff as always

[@itaiharoosh]

Just gotta say - I LOVE the new efforts on this channel. THANK YOU RICKY!

[@freelancewriter]

First of all, the video series idea is fantastic. Secondly, I have had an indexing problem partly because I checked that "discourage indexing" checkbox while installing WordPress, and it messed up everything. I tried almost everything to fix it, but Google won't index my articles. So I deleted that starter site, bought a new domain, and started posting articles on that. It started indexing within less than 24 hours.

[@oneclickshorts9866]

have to click the discourage idexing button to indexing the side?

[@freelancewriter]

@@oneclickshorts9866 No. Never ever do that.

[@COLOMBIAFRANK]

I had some big indexing issues as the property changed from with www to without www. This can happen when you move hosting, make updates etc.

[@redmantech8167]

This is a great series, started with video 2 but this is exactly the basics I need!

[@shoeperaturkiyeyuksekokcel5207]

If too many sites have already covered the same subject Google doesnt index anymore. It thinks "this subject is already present on Internet."

[@owenlawre]

Thanks for the video Rickey. I will check to make sure my sites are indexed correctly.

[@nelly7105]

No issues yet, but I will keep this in mind. Thank you!

[@RusticByNature]

Great info, Thanks for the breakdown.

[@tomamine]

I had the same issue earlier this year! Thanks for your feedback!!

[@RandyBridgesRealtor]

Great! Thank you very much!!! Been working on my site for a couple of weeks now trying to figure out Indexing and things.

[@harmfreefashion]

Yes! This is the exact video series I needed. I've been struggling with this problem on my blog that I started in Jan. I currently have 38 blog posts and only 22 of them are indexed. Definitely looking forward to the upcoming videos. Thanks for addressing this issue!

[@pied-piper-of-hamelin]

Have you tried to promote your blog posts on other content platforms? The thing is Google probably has a list of priority websites which they will index instantly as soon as new content appears e.g. twitter, KZbin, news websites etc. So promoting your Content on those platforms (including a link back to your post on your blog) kind of forces Google to index your web pages. May Simba's five forces be with your content. ~Simba

[@harmfreefashion]

@@pied-piper-of-hamelin Thanks for the tips. I currently promote my new blogs on instagram, Pinterest, linkedin, and facebook and while Google is finding my blog posts, they're choosing not to index them. I've yet to discover any common thread...

[@DenisIlyaev]

Great advice Ricky! Even though my content is ranking thanks to Project 24, I still followed along and double-checked the settings of my website anyways. Keep up the great videos!

[@discovermetaldetecting]

Super helpful video....looking forward to the next one. Thanks Ricky. 👍🏻

[@inthekitchenwithmatt]

I recently found a few posts that were not indexed, they were only like 2 or 3 weeks old, but it freaked me out, and then I started spot-checking other posts, haha I went ahead and told Google to index those that weren't. I am sure that is what your next video is going to be about.

[@DeanJensen60]

Another awesome video Ricky, I can't wait for the rest of the series, thanks again.

[@FilthyRich247]

Cheers for the insight mate. Valuable knowledge. Subbed.

[@bilalsardar260]

This is the first video I've watched by income school. wow, I mean this guy is amazing. I've enjoyed the whole video and session. It is soo friendly. I've indexed all his words and what is trying to Conway through his words...!!!😃😁

[@IncomeSchool]

Wow, thanks!

[@rizkhanedits]

This was the problem in my past. But now I started new website in Aug 2020 and till now I have published 33 posts and all of them has been indexed and ranked successfully.. Thanks to jim and ricky for motivation

[@realhercules]

I'm ranking well on other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and Duckduckgo which is a signal that my content is good. I'm not going to let this discourage me from creating more content because that's the most important thing. If there is a chance for my articles to get indexed in the future then I will continue until I reach a certain amount of articles I had intended to write. I just don't want to have any regrets when my articles start to index. Best to finish the mission and be proud of your work.

[@kylesok5179]

hi andrew , glad to hear that you are running well ..could you tell me how many posts you have till now

[@realhercules]

@@kylesok5179 100

[@khanabdulrehman26]

Hey andrew, My site don't appear on search engines like bing or yahoo, what should I do?

[@anasamer7223]

Updates?

[@luisabueno6316]

Excellent information! Looking forward to the next video 👍

[@jawadahmad7005]

I have lot of pages that are not being indexed. I know a lot of people might know this but let me just say it for those that don't. I noticed a simple pattern: these articles were not internally linked to those that had been already indexed. Remember to always add outbound links to your indexed articles for the articlea you want to get indexed

[@Aditya-gx1xv]

Thanks for your knowledge!

[@ericdahl2915]

meh, i use Yoast Premium and still 80% of my pages are not indexed

[@khanabdulrehman26]

@@ericdahl2915 Change the plugin dude, I am also doing the same, I heard rank math is better option than Yoast or anyother alternative.

[@khanabdulrehman26]

@Jawad Ahmad, If I add internal links to the posts that are already being indexed to the post which are not indexed, would it get indexed?

[@GunTradition]

I wrote 30 articles and waited to battleship. And waited, and waited. After a year, I realized none of my articles had been indexed. I went into Google Console and requested indexing. It was indexed in 2 weeks. That was about 5 months ago.

[@NarayanaSwamyNS]

A very helpful piece for absolute beginners😍

[@jesseestrada321]

Looking forward to that next video!

[@EmilyReviews]

I started a new blog back in late June and it has 25 blog posts and only about five of them have been indexed. I've noticed that when I click 'coverage' in GSC, it sometimes says I have 100+ pages (this is including categories/tags not just individual posts of course) that are discovered but not yet indexed. Then a few days later GSC will say there are only 12 posts that are discovered but not yet indexed which confuses me. This has happened several times where it feels like google knows the posts are there, and then forgets about them somehow. Being only 10 weeks or so in, I am not sure if I am being paranoid or if it really is something to be concerned about. I know my sitemap is submitted and is fine so I think I'm likely just over-thinking it. This is my 2nd niche blog, my first niche blog was getting its new posts indexed within just a few days from the time it was like 6 weeks old which I think is the main reason I keep worrying but I may have just been lucky the first time around.

[@nom1329]

Once you have the initial hitlist down, how do you build out an outline for each topic to give to your writers?

[@youtubeshorts6874]

Liked, subscribed. One page on my site ranking 5 top and is not important while another one is not indexed but it is important.

[@IncomeSchool]

If that article is important, I think I’d link to it prominently on the homepage until it gets indexed. And of course request indexing for that url.

[@thailandmopedadventures611]

Great Content, thanks Rick. Some of my Blogpost took 15 Month to show up.

[@PR4DE]

Yes, I have a few articles that Google doesn't wanna index. What all of them have in common is that they are crap. Utterly garbage articles I made at the beginning of my blogging journey. :) I've rewritten some of the articles and only a week or so later, I started to see them getting indexed. My top advice is: look at your content and see if it actually fits the user's search intent.

[@DindinHendra]

I also have the same problem.. some contents in my blog was not getting index for several months.. then I decided to change the title and change the url.. then I refetch the link in webmaster tool.. it works.. one article got indexed by google.. However, I still have another article that doesn't indexed by google.. Thank you for making this topic, I can't wait to watch next videos about this topic..

[@happypotential]

Thank you for a great video!😄 Can you, please, help me with an off-topic question? I want to create a website in English. But I live in the country where English isn't spoken AT ALL. Will it have any influence on site's ranking?

[@katietimmons8444]

Very helpful, Thanks!

[@antheajansen254]

Thanks for your time and honesty

[@MLengley]

Man this is the topic I'm looking for... Thank you!!! Need at least two videos from you guys... One probably informational like today's video and one video on some site successful/failed site review... Two videos like that would be great.

[@axeandtool]

2 month old site in the works, and only 4 of 18 posts have been crawled - even with internal linking? Looking forward to this series.

[@OrpheusAudioAcademy]

Wow, I had no idea pages not getting indexed was even an issue. How do I know if a page or post hasn't been indexed? It doesn't have any traffic? Guess I'll watch the next video!

[@JBN011A]

great advice as always thank you

[@Omar_Abdalla]

Great info for future sites!

[@countrydancingtonight7215]

Loved the intro! So funny. Like many, so far I've been pretty lucky to not have many issues with this. Typically a day or two later after I published by the time I bother to check it is already indexed! I kinda wonder about that! How does Google know to crawl so fast? I guess I'll just be happy it does.

[@MattCranfield]

I've not noticed any indexing issues with my sites, but now I want to go and check. Thanks Ricky 😊

[@lizzy311]

I had some issues also with Google not indexing... But the most annoying issue is Google says the font size is too small in a few blog posts, but if I check in GSC, it always says that the post is mobile friendly and everything is good ✅. But if I tell Google to verify that, it just happens again and again. And all blog posts are the same font size. It is really confusing and frustrating... But thanks for the help Ricky.

[@probabilistically]

I had a regular post that was originally indexed, and then indexing disappeared, for months. It was right around that time last year when you could not request indexing. I ended up reposting under a different URL, and it got indexed fine. There was nothing unusual about the article.

[@denniszenanywhere]

Appreciate this but hopefully, you can also do technical SEO tips after an audit or Google Lighthouse check.

[@comeacross8774]

I published 73 articles and only about 25 of them indexed

[@rockersmedia1377]

This is what I am looking for...correct time...

[@troydeville6885]

I've never had crawling issues but I've had other weird issues where an image from a post will rank higher than my actual article. After a week or so it eventually sorts itself out though.

[@EmmaCruises]

I love the title of this video, made me click instantly. 😎

[@wanggang3885]

Ricky is doing an amazing job. Thank you.

[@PathsUnwritten]

I've been very surprised by the amount a piece has moved around in the results in the first 2-6 weeks it appears. Most seem to have stabilized a bit after a couple months, but was always switching up for the first while.

[@KSigKid]

No doubt a frustrating experience. Looking forward to the series this week.

[@FindingMyselfYoung]

I've been having heaps of issues with redirect errors causing content to not be indexed but there's no actual error. Apparently it's a blogger issue redirecting the bot between the mobile and .html versions and there's nothing that can be done. Most of my posts get indexed but some just get pinged for redirect errors, it's SO frustrating.

[@shrotkatewa]

Good video, lot of work seems to have been put in, and I love that! 😍

[@BassPlayer0815]

Love the intro🙌🏻

[@jaytv9348]

Hello. Thank you for this video. I have something to ask regarding Google indexing. Since my website is new and I still have one article published on it (but I will publish more soon), is that also the reason why I can't find my site in Google after I requested if for indexing for how many times? Is a new website is also a factor why it cannot be indexed? Thank you for the answer. 🙏🏻 By the way, I published my article last Feb. 8, 2022. My collegues, who is an IT expert told me that I need to index my site and my posted articles always. So I did that. But everytime I always request for indexing, I guess it doesn't work. So I though if maybe a new website is also a factor why Google cannot index mine. 👍

[@NancyUlrich]

Haven't had a problem with this. Probably sheer luck, like 100 monkeys typing out Hamlet. Looking forward to the next video. I want to know what I've been doing that works. And what I can do better.

[@farwashoaib4196]

I started a site 2 months ago and posting one article a day for the last month. but most of my recent articles are not being indexed even after interlinking them to the indexed content and submitting manual requests. is it normal for a new site?

[@Gpeps22]

I honest have no idea how to tell if my stuff is indexed, but doesn't seem to have been a problem. Would love to check!

[@poxer1]

grab a few words from the content and put it in "" Example "your text from your blog post" and put it in google.

[@shutterspeedireland1148]

Class as always lad!

[@martijn11]

Hey Ricky, I love the new videos! Thanks for the info. I'm struggling now with a slow performance and being penalized by google for it. I'm actually migrating to a new host this week. Hopefully that solves some of the issues 🙏🏻

[@Kevinstats]

I have heard if an article isn't indexed you can change the URL slug and resubmit it to the google search console to resolve the issue.

[@beardlong8235]

I do have. Especially for small topics that hadnt been answered before...

[@yoRRnl]

Interesting video, I was doing fine, and creating content for years. But i see that the indexed pages are getting less and less out of the blue. These are good blog posts, with tons of info. Better than the competition. It is frustrating! It doesnt feel 'fair'. :(

[@HotTubOwnerHQ]

I was curious why you showed Yoast as I thought you preferred Rank Math as an SEO plug in. Have your thoughts on Rank Math changed?

[@KimbesasCloset]

Yes. I'd like to know more. I thought you took the SEO plug ins off your sites. Thanks!

[@IncomeSchool]

I do prefer Rank Math and usually don’t even use an SEO plugin. But one of the reasons we have so many sites is that we can continue to test things. Yoast has made quite a few updates and if my opinion about them is only informed by what features they had a year or more ago, then my opinion isn’t valid anymore. I’ll do an update before long with my latest recommendations.

[@wanefelicia8779]

@@IncomeSchool your opinion on experience w the program would still be valuable for beginner

[@blenderbasecamp]

I have an interesting scenario where some of my blog posts are not being indexed, but are still shown to be getting traffic. My site is only a couple of months old so it, of course, takes time for google to crawl the posts. I have one post in particular that according to google analytics is my third best page for traffic yet according to the URL inspector is not currently indexed, which is good, but also a bit confusing.

[@Whatisthis_1]

same pinch

[@dominiquehaynes7208]

do you leave it at default yes or just yes in the advance section of yoast?

[@RewardsWebsites]

So much to learn, but your channel has a way of making the knowledge easier to acquire. Thanks a lot and I look forward to more videos from you!

[@TortoiseCashFlow]

Been having indexing issues on my newest site. Thinking it's due to some low quality content from a bad writer. Half of my content was indexed the other half not. I drafted all the "poor" content and now my site is getting more views then it's ever had. Think it got like 16 views yesterday (normally gets less than 5)

[@hn4279]

Commenting for the contest; that title works BTW

[@fire6163]

Great video! I think another reason John Mueller mentioned pages don't get crawled is due to the overall quality of a website. If the overall quality of a website is low then they may not index all of the pages of that website. So great content is always the way to go.

[@tea.andagoodbook]

Just the sort of information I like to hear about

[@EFitz-xt4ym]

Lol love the intro Ricky ❤️

[@HackTheMinotaur]

This is a great idea for a series! I just started a new site 2 months ago. Looking forward to knowing how I can get all those pages to start showing up

[@michaelrhea1150]

Good info! The part about orphaned pages is super important and goes back to your earlier video(s) about the importance of interlinking.

[@TortoiseCashFlow]

Link whisper helps show all orphaned pages

[@donnie321]

I started my blog in August 2020 and it took google half a year to even start indexing and testing out my pages. Therefore I believe I am severely behind on the regular timeframe, as I have 103 articles (many older than 8 months) and I'm just barely starting to see 50 to 70 page views per day. Overall monthly traffic has been increasing steadily over the last 4 months but it's still quite low. I also noticed that many of my articles jumped in and out of the index for seemingly no reason. While checking the competition, some of the other blogs have seen the hockey stick growth in as little as 6 months. It's weird, but I just wanted to let you know that Google sometimes just decides to ignore some pieces of content for a very long time for no apparent reason, even though I'm sure there must be one.

[@THINKQER]

I started a new site 2 months ago. Some contents have been indexed. But some of them not. I had another 2 years old site with contents, but didn't perform well. I mean I had no traffic for those contents. What I did was I removed all of the contents and reinstalled wordpress. Put just one content and indexed through search console. After 1 day it was indexed. But the contents in my site weren't indexed. Interesting

[@rickkern5785]

How many links? I have a couple of pages that are ranking a bit and I have put links to my new pages from there. Not sure if that works but you may try it.

[@investingwithjeffyt]

I love the intro Ricky

[@thefitmoves]

Hey there! Thank you for amazing content!! I've started new website and slowly oages and posts are indexed! But! Google console gives me reports that I have problems and not indexed pages - which are that one I deleted! I'm using rankmath and everything has redirections. But it's literally 4 pages and 3 posts website 😂😂 Is that bad that Google sees old, not existing pages?

[@justinmike9184]

Hey INCOME SCHOOL, I've got a site with 35 articles published(all in the first month my blog was live). Do you think my blog will be able to earn enough money to pay for the renew of web hosting and domain? Cuz I'm a student with limited money.

[@annikavallgren]

Not that I am aware of. I don’t have time to check if I am indexed or even how my pages rank any more. Just focusing on new content. Is there an easy way to check?

[@ETechreview]

I am having this issue now, last month it actually indexing in 2-4hrs to index, but now it taking weeks to 10 days. I didn't do any major changes to my website also. I don't know what happened.

[@daniellemassie7303]

Should I tell google not to crawl blog posts that were uploaded from a demo data file for my theme?

[@pingustube]

Thanks

[@Its_Just_Brad]

I had 102 posts that refused to index. It recently dropped to 65 but still sucks to have that many but I will say this is a google problem they are not aware of. I had a post index today I published early February. 8 months later. Didn’t change a thing. Google just finally started to index some posts.

[@kvetoslavagupta8786]

The timing of this videos is just perfect. I have recently run to this issue on my site which is about four months old. Although I have managed to get most of my posts indexed now, there is one that Google just won’t index no matter what I do. Can’t wait to find out what can be done about it.

[@BePositive1986]

I recently publish a website with two subdomains. subdomains are for other languages. I add domain and two other subdomain to google search console. but only one subdomain get indexed. main domain and the other subdomain only have thier homepage indexed. Robot txt on domain and subdomains are set, sitemaps are added to search console. after 4 weeks nothing happen... what's wrong?

[@mirandacox3751]

Great video as always! I have had this problem, but all of my articles are under a month old. I am curious to see if it continues in the long run. Some have been indexed, others have not. I think it is because I write about very competitive topics. Thanks!

[@rickynave]

Has it gotten any better in the last 4 months?

[@mirandacox3751]

@@rickynave all of my articles are indexed

[@simplifygardening]

So far touch wood I have not found this issue, but a lot of my content is under 8 months old . will watch the rest of the series so I can double check. thanks Ricky

[@margaret5828]

I had a problem with articles published in January 2021. From Feb onward, new articles on the same site were indexing but no joy with the January stuff. Eventually, I think about May, the January articles suddenly appeared. I assume this was a Google glitch that they fixed.

[@foxruneec]

I have occasionally submitted a site map.

[@mr.veryqqinteresting879]

1- Drip feed 100 articles each year. 2- Start making money at the end of the next year.

[@pagazuzduluho6257]

When I was creating content for my blog regularly my posts used to get indexd and ranked by Google 1 to 2 hours after requesting indexing, I ve stopped publishing new content for 2 years now it takes weeks