Blog Post/Website Not Appearing On Google Search Engine - Issues Solved

A lot of Bloggers have once dealt with blog post or website not appearing on Google search engine. There are several reasons why this issues could happen. Even after you believe yourself to be an experienced Blogger you might sometimes be troubled by this popular issue - blog post not appearing on Google search engine. So on this article today we are going to talk about those issues, why it happens and how to resolve them. Pay close attention if you are on this table so that you don't miss any vital information.

 1. New Blog : You wouldn't expect your blog to appear on Google search immediately after creating it. It doesn't happen that way especially if you have not even index it. But even after you have indexed your blog post or website it is going to take a while before it makes it to the search engine. So since it is a new website it will take time for the crawlers to be notified of your website and articles. If you're just creating the website and you want Google search crawlers to discover it then the next point we'll discuss will be beneficial to you. 

 2. Index Via Google Search Console : Google search console is a free service software where you can get your website and blog posts index so it can appear on Google search engine. Remember, the search engine is the most organic way you could drive to traffic to your blog. So you no doubt need it to rank too. For that to be achieved you need to index your website and then followed by your written articles. When you index your website you are simply telling Google that you want your website as well as your articles to appear on their search engine.

 Some newbies normally aren't aware of this and end up waiting for months and still their website won't appear on search engines. Asides Google search another search engine you could index your website is bing. This is optional though as some blogs eventually show up there even without being indexed on bing webmaster. Google search has becomed the world's most popular search engine and therefore majority of people will always use Google search engine. So ensure that you index your website as the first thing after creating it.

How To Index Your Website/Blog Post On Google Search Console

To index your website or an article you have written on Google search console you need to be logged in with your email on your preferred browser. Then type your domain address in the new domain window and click on continue as shown below.

After that you will be taken to a page where you need to verify the domain's ownership. That is, Google needs to confirm that your are the owner of the website you want to index. So on the next page that follows read the instructions and proceed to verify your domain ownership. The page should look like something shown on this photo below.

As you can see the steps are simply to follow. On the above picture you are being asked to copy a unique code and paste it in your DNS configuration of your website. You can access this feature when you login to your cpanel ( with the username and password generated for you after you must have purchased a host for your domain earlier before this ). If you are using blogspot free host then you don't have to go through all those process but you just have to be logged in to the email you used in creating your blogspot website. After you have copied and pasted the codes given to you come back to this page and click on the verify button. After being successfully verified you can now proceed to index your website.

To index your website for the first time click on the menu option there on the search console website and select "Sitemaps". 

After you click on "Sitemaps" a pop up window will open which would require you to enter your sitemap. Note that the default sitemap is https://yourdomain/sitemap.xml ( replace "yourdomain" with your domain url. E.g gistus.com.ng ) as shown below.

After entering your sitemap in the add new sitemap area proceed to click on the submit button and you're done with that part. After you're done setting up your sitemap maje sure to check below the page it's status wether it was successful or not. If it's successful then you should have something like this on the photo displayed below.

 So now the next thing so do is indexing your published articles.

Let's assume that you have successfully indexed your website, now the next thing to do is to start publishing contents you intended to if you haven't done so already. Supposed you already have published articles yet to be indexed you can proceed to index it now. Not that the first index tutorial we talked about was about the main website while the second we will now be discussing has to do with individual articles published.

How To Index Your Articles On Google Search Engine

For each articles you publish you must endeavor to index it on Google search console so that it could appear on Google search engine. To index a certain article simply copy the link to that article. For example the link to this post would be (https://www.gistus.com.ng/2022/05/blog-post-or-website-not-appearing-on-google.html) After copying click on the search icon on Google search console website and paste the copied link as you can see in these photos below.

After you must have pasted the link proceed to tap on the enter key to process the indexing. After some few seconds another webpage will pop up where you are required to click on the "request indexing" button. 

Now notice in the above picture that you url hasn't been indexed yet and so it says that "URL is not on Google". This is a normal cade scenario for the fact that you haven't indexed your blog post yet and it doesn't mean that it can't be indexed eventually, so no need to panic. All you have to do is click on "REQUEST INDEX". After that you have to wait for some seconds or few minutes depending on some cases. But if you feel that it's taking too long then cancel and try again. Otherwise if successful you receive a message similar to this one in the picture below.

The message there reads "indexing requested". And it simply means that you have requested for your article to be indexed and after approval it will show up on Google search. If it is new blog it might take few days before it gets indexed but on some cases few hours. So as for everything indexing you are done for now. However note that you will need to index every other articles on your blog individually. The maximum articles you can index in a day is limited on Google search console.

3. Rank Math : Rank Math is a WordPress plugin that helps optimize your articles without much work. It's one of those methods you can use boost your articles if they are taking long or not appearing on Google search. To use Rank Math simply go to your WordPress dashboard, click on plugins and then select "Add New Plugin". Then search for "Rank Math"and proceed to install and activate it.

So next time you want to publish an article Rank Math will give you suggestions on how to optimize your articles. For example, you will be given an area where you would type in a description for that particular article ( what the article is all about ). The description you type in will be displayed on Google search engine so viewers could have some insight on what your article is about even before clicking on it. So endeavor to write a good eye catching description. However, avoid click bait at all cost otherwise you might have to deal with a negative bounce rate!

4. URL Slug/Permalink : This refers to the attached extension in your blog post link after your main domain URL. It can be found on any link in your website that's aside homepage link. E.g pages, categories,etc. But we want to focus on blog post URL Slug or permalink. If you are still confused on how it looks like then this photo below help you understand.

Now that you must have understand what I'm talking about let me now explain more on what it has to do with your website not appearing on Google or taking long too. If you noticed from this particular permalink that it is well optimized. By that i mean it contains all the necessary description without being too long or short.

A good and optimized permalink should be able to explain in few details what your article is all about. This few detailed description helps Google crawlers index your article fast on its engine for others to see. On Blogspot host you can customize your permalink to look neat such as this one. You could find the feature on your blog post settings before publishing.

On Blogspot you would only be able to edit from after date of when the article was written/published. For example, you won't be able to edit the 2022/05/ ( month/year ). However on WordPress you can edit or delete everything and rewrite again with your own words. No matter the host you are using always ensure that your URL Slug/permalink remains neat. Please note that is it not advisable to keep editing the permalink severally after you must have published the article because it can hurt your SEO.

5. Not Enough Backlinks : Ever wondered why everyone else's articles are already on Google search engine but yours isn't despite the fact that it was published same day or you even published yours first! Well, if that happens to you there might be several reasons but if you've already checked everything else and it's ok then you could be in lack of backlinks. Backlinks, remember i said earlier on one of my articles gives your website more authority than those blogs without them. 

You might be targeting a particular keyword which has a lot of competitors and because of that those with higher domain authority than yours would probably rank first before you have the chance. So try and get some backlinks for your site so it would increase it's authority otherwise you could simply go for keywords with low competition.

Conclusions

I've spent some time to talk about what could be the reasons your website or articles aren't showing up on Google. I've also explained what you need to do so everything gets back on track. Hope you've benefited from this article. Share this to those who might need it and don't forget to come back to this blog as we share with you more blogging and SEO tutorials or solutions.