Blog pages not indexing on GSC

Whilst I appreciate blogging takes time, my home page was registered on Google within the first few days, but none of my blog pages are indexing. Actually, 95% of my pages are 'Discovered, Not Indexed'. I've connected GSC, and I have a few backlinks (very few) as the blog is only 3 months old. 

I've read some articles from 2022 about this being a wider SS problem but since we're now in 2024 and checked that all pages are not 'hidden', I'd love to know if this is still something people are experiencing. Is it just a matter of quality DA and backlinks? I'm comfortable with SS and don't want to have to migrate to WP if not essential, but I aim to make a portion of my income from the blog. 

Are people still having trouble with SS blogging/indexing on Google, or is this fixed with SS and I'm missing a trick here? Would appreciate any expertise! 

My website is https://kind-living.com

Hi @HayleyTitheradge - I've experienced this before (I have a travel blog on Squarespace, which makes me side income), so don't stress too much as it can be resolved 🙌

I've looked at your site and really like your content - I can tell you put a lot of effort into it. A few people have raised the SQSP indexing problem before, but I think, in general, it's not a problem with Squarespace; it's just that SEO can take time, and quality content and backlinks don't come overnight.

Here's a couple of things I noticed which might help:

• Content length: I looked at https://www.kind-living.com/journal/what-is-circular-fashion and compared it to what ranks on page 1 for "what is circular fashion", and your article was shorter than most of them. While you should prioritize value over length, if everything on page 1 is 2,000 words+ (for example), then you will likely have to match it to rank. This isn't always the case, but it could be why.
• Manually requesting indexing: Have you manually requested GSC indexes your blog posts? Additionally, you can "Test Live URL" on GSC to see if anything 'technically' is holding you back.
• Backlinks and referring domains: I know you're aware of this, but attached is Ahref's overview of your site - it's not picking up many backlinks yet, so Google might not be. I recommend focussing more on this than content in the next month or so. 
• On-page SEO: SEOSpace is in maintenance right now gearing up for V2 launch, so I can't test your on-page myself unfortunately sorry! But, I noticed some of your blogs could have more internal links, which helps Google discover other pages on your site.

I have a few resources I can send over, which I think will really help - let me know and if you have any questions.

Hi Henry, thanks for your reply!

It's a very new blog, yes, so traffic and backlinks are very low. A couple of questions:

• Test URL: I did this and I'm getting N/A across the link, crawling, etc. It's 'Discovered - Not indexed', 'Not on Google' which is alarming. 
• How does one acquire more backlinks to existing content? Any advice on this?

So, apart from backlinks and longer form content, Google should index my content or is there an underlying issue I'm not seeing? I would be happy at this point if Google would just recognise my content, I'll build on traffic over time but to have the content live and not seen is frustrating. 

Hi @HayleyTitheradge - no problem at all!

Yes, this just means Google knows the web page is there (so it is recognising your content, fortunately!), but hasn't decided to index it for a number of reasons - I have a video here which might help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sZk1CA3zIA

In terms of backlinks... it's tricky; there are lots of ways and a lot of people do it wrong. I have a strategy in this video at 10:04 which should help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyFb3Uell4k

In general, I recommend:

• Creating content that's worthy of linking to
• Collabs with other businesses
• Guest posting
• Sharing content across social media
• Working with industry organisations etc.

On 1/1/2024 at 6:52 PM, HayleyTitheradge said:

Are people still having trouble with SS blogging/indexing on Google, or is this fixed with SS and I'm missing a trick here? Would appreciate any expertise! 

Hi @HayleyTitheradge I don't have issues indexing my blog posts. I only have a handful of them so far!

The 1st one took about 2 weeks to be indexed. The 2nd one looks to be only a few days. They third one hasn't made it through yet!

I manually requested index on each page after they're published. Have you tried doing this?

In terms of backlinks, I really don't have any yet. I went through and did all the SEO things I could currently. 🙏

Hi there:

site:https://www.kind-living.com/journal/

Your journal is being indexed.

If you want deeper pages on your website to be found faster

a) ensure that you link between blog posts
b) add a content block to your homepage that links to your latest blog post.

Discovered but 'not-indexed' statements tend to be about improving your internal linking, or that there is another page on your website that is more relevant that the page you are trying to index - for example that it repeats the content or has similar content. That might not be the specific problem in your case but that is what it generally means and how the above a) and b) generally fixes it.

Go back 25 years and Google had an add URL page on their search engine where you would submit websites to it. Now you need to have a sitemap and some patience.

I would not suggest you focus on backlinks, but instead invest your time in writing content for your blog. Google is killing off organic SEO - watch their video on Generative Search and ask yourself the question - where is my organic visibility in this new search context - so you will do better at working on creating content for people rather than search engines.

I also think you should periodically - once a month - check your site health, but don't spend time following all the whether it is updated or not. You can easily find out this information by looking at your SquareSpace statistics, which are a far better measure of your content quality and determination of how on point it is.

Have a nice day.

G

@HayleyTitheradge Indeed, indexing pages with Google can sometimes be a bit of a tricky process. However, don't worry, you're not alone. The scenario you're describing is actually quite common, especially for newer websites or blogs. It's not necessarily a problem with your site or Squarespace, but often a result of Google's algorithms and crawling routines.

One solution that might speed up the indexing process is to submit your pages manually to Google. Also keep an eye on your website pages health.

I built a tool recently for my personal uses that does exactly that. It monitors your website pages for indexing/crawling issues and can auto-index your new pages in 24h-48h. You can try it for free here → indexvite.com

Hi Hayley, I've done SEO and digital marketing for over 15 years. I've not run into any SEO issues with Squarespace (it could use more customization, but out of the box, you absolutely can be successful in organic search). I used to have several websites on WP and moved them to Squarespace primarily because of ease of use issues (it's slow and clunky to work in WP) and because of page performance, speed and Core Web Vitals issues (all pages on my SS sites pass CWV with flying colors). 

A quick site search shows that Google has indexed 10 of your blog posts (assuming it's under the /journal subdirectory). You can check this for your entire site or any subsection of your site by going into Google and typing site:https://www.kind-living.com or site:https://www.kind-living.com/journal for specifically your blog. Your XML sitemap contains the blog articles and they are not blocked in robots.txt.

Your domain looks brand new, so as others have said, it's going to take some time to build up any kind of organic search equity. 

Yes you can use Google Search Console (GSC) to check your indexation report. If it's saying the pages have been discovered, but not indexed, it's more of a quality/trust/uniqueness issue. 

You can help Google and other search engines better understand your business by giving more context to some of your pages. For example, I don't really see what locale you operate in without going to your Events page. Try to put more info in your footer and in your Contact Us page with country (and business name, address, phone if possible).

Thanks, Sharon. 

I appreciate your feedback and advice, manually indexing on GSC has worked for some of the newer posts so far, I guess it's just time, backlinks & more optimization that'll help me grow now. 

On 1/23/2024 at 5:57 PM, Wassim said:

@HayleyTitheradge Indeed, indexing pages with Google can sometimes be a bit of a tricky process. However, don't worry, you're not alone. The scenario you're describing is actually quite common, especially for newer websites or blogs. It's not necessarily a problem with your site or Squarespace, but often a result of Google's algorithms and crawling routines.

One solution that might speed up the indexing process is to submit your pages manually to Google. Also keep an eye on your website pages health.

I built a tool recently for my personal uses that does exactly that. It monitors your website pages for indexing/crawling issues and can auto-index your new pages in 24h-48h. You can try it for free here → indexvite.com

Just subscribe the tool for my site!

How often it will re-submit the Submitted pages? The setting Auto Index will apply for new pages added into sitemap.xml only right?