When you create a new page on your website, it ideally gets indexed sooner or later. The more pages you have, the more pages you'll get in Google's index, and the more opportunities you can avail. But saying that is taking Google Indexing for granted. Owing to a lot of factors, Google might not index every page it crawls on your site. So what should you do when you see Google giving you the cold shoulder? How can you increase the number of pages indexed by Google?
Google Index Status
You can see the index situation of your website from the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard. On the left sidebar, expand Google Index, and then clock on Index Status. Switch to the Advanced tab to see more detail.
In the advanced view, you can view and compare 'Total Indexed', 'Blocked by Robots' and 'Removed'. Google doesn’t index every page it crawls, owing to reasons such as duplicate content, absence of index tags and lack of useful content on a page. You can see the numbers represented by a graph, which helps you analyze trends. Your index status might have taken a hit after an update, for instance. You can work towards recovering from such a hit.
You can also compare the total number of pages crawled vs the total number of pages indexed. If, for some reason your pages are not making it into the index, here are a few tips that can help.
Improving Index status
- XML Sitemap - Have a smart XML sitemap. It’s a good idea to have a sitemap index file where different sections are broken out (example: dynamic, static, blog posts, blog categories, etc.). That way, you can submit each sitemap (and the index file) itself and more closely monitor the index status of each; thus identifying any issues within a certain section.
- Increase Internal-linking - The more internal-linking you have, the pages connected the pages on your site are, and the easier it is for Google to crawl them. If a page turns up repeatedly in a crawl, Google is likelier to index it, thinking it must be an important page after all.
- Remove duplicate content - Fix any duplicate content and crawl errors. When crawl time is wasted on duplicate content and errors, the pages that matter aren't getting the attention they “deserve.” Also, check the non-indexable section in GWT (under Search Appearance >> HTML Improvements).
- Use Structured Data - Adding structured data and rich snippets can help search engines understand the content on your site, hence facilitating the index process.
- Use Webmaster Tools - Google Webmaster Tools portal is your best friend. Use the Fetch as Google feature in GWT, and submit your site to index.
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