THIS IS NOT THE TOOL YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
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There is a thing that you probably don't need to know, and if you do know it, that knowledge will confuse you, alarm you needlessly, and cause you waste your time.
Are you in?
I thought so.
Here's the thing. Google, in an effort to be transparent and helpful, can provide detailed information about how Google Search views your blog.
Google does this with a free tool called Search Console.
The most valuable advice about that, for most of us, is to ignore Search Console.
It's not a tool that is designed for us, and it gives a lot of unclear signals.
It's also a gateway drug to the world of search-engine optimization, which (though legitimate) is littered with quack remedies, hucksters, misinformation, and "tips" that do not apply to Blogger.
Not for the likes of us
This is useful to know, for web developers. It's also a virtuous practice of transparency by Google.
It isn't, however, a set of instructions for you, unless your skill level is very great.
Here's an example of a massive "error" that all Blogger blogs should have.
Redirect
?m=1," are "not indexed or served on Google."Search Console describes this as a "page with redirect." (Update: Or, as a reader notes (comment below), "page redirect" )
As web developers understand, this is normal, expected, and beneficial to your blog. It is only an error in the sense that Googlebot has investigated a url that is not being indexed.
Actually, if you do not see these urls reported in this way, you have a problem. Probably you have made some bad customizations, such as fiddling with the robots.txt settings.
(If this is you, go and undo that! Turn all customizations off. You're welcome.)
You can't "fix" this "error": it isn't broken.
Mismatch
The mismatch between this tool and the Bloggerverse can be profound.
It's a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.
Photo: Matt Artz/Unsplash
Custom Robots.txt? Is that including the custom header X-Meta Tag?
ReplyDeleteI can see how injecting a custom header into select blog posts could be useful, if you have the technical skills to do so.
DeleteIn theory any of the customizations could serve a purpose, which is why there are customization options available in the first place! But for most bloggers, there are not oging to be applicable or useful.
Injecting custom metadata by post would require modifying the theme xml, right? I am not sure what modifications would be required..
Most of my articles are not indexed. I have set it to index on Search and Archive pages for special titles. I wonder if this is the reason?
DeleteIt could be a factor in poor page rank, for sure.
DeleteThe defaults that come with Blogger are best 99.99% of the time.
So do we need to reset the Custom Robot Titles as well? Or just Custom Robots.txt?
ReplyDeleteMy advice is unless you absolutely know what you are doing, leave all that stuff set to the defaults.
DeleteVery helpful. I recall how I freaked when I saw all the m=1 pages unindexed. Now if it would only index all the pages genuinely awaiting indexing.
ReplyDeleteOh, I feel you! Google has gotten too cute about what it likes.
DeleteBut even here, Search Console lets us down! It routinely says pages are not indexed that are nonetheless findable in search!
(As you can see by my excessive use of exclamation points, I do have thoughts.)
GSC is useful, but I agree that most people can be overwhelmed and confused by the messages sent to their email. So it's worth having it linked to Google Analytics, not necessarily with email notifications turned on.
ReplyDeleteI would say that more people report "redirect error" related to m=1 than "page with redirect". Similar, but not the same problems. When it comes to Blogger, the former mainly involves the mobile googlebot redirected from desktop to mobile links. The second also includes redirects such as non-www to www, http to https, etc. “Redirect error” is transient and usually resolves itself in the long run. However, sometimes you have to wait for a very long time, especially on fresh or less popular sites. So it's best not to waste time waiting, just build good quality content and get traffic from various sources.
Thank you, Arkadiusz. I will link to your comment from the post.
DeleteThe way I think about this is not "GSC is evil and useless" but that it is a highly specialized tool that assumes a skill set that Blogger pointedly does not.
Also Blogger is pretty optimized for search out of the box, so there is not much that bloggers can do with the information anyway.
My theory is that most of the useful signals from GSC are to people who have screwed something up trying to make Blogger technically "better." Maybe in a panic from something they saw on GSC!
There is also information for those less advanced. GSC will show you or send you via email positive things like currently trending pages and achievements, performance on Google, most popular content in a given time frame or how people find you (keywords).
DeleteDirect link: https://search.google.com/search-console/insights/
I agree, especially when they use settings from random "SEO guides" or try to index spam / thin content.
Please someone provide a solution for it, most of the posts are unindexed, due to crawling or cannonical tag, please help me out.
ReplyDeleteThis comment (sorry, Anonymous, but you are kind of asking for it) is a perfect example of what I am suggesting NOT to do: obsess about Search Console.
DeleteGoogle's new pickiness about what it will include in search is a serious problem affecting many websites.
But the business about "canonical tag" is just the sort of misread that it is so easy to make from GSC.
Blogger is optimized for Google out of the box. This includes a built-in specification of canonical tag.
The problem is real but this is not it.