We know that ranking highly on Google’s search engines is tough, but did you know that even showing up in the first place can be tough too? There are numerous reasons why Google isn’t indexing your site, and today we’ll be talking about seven of them. It’s important that you avoid these pitfalls as much as possible by consulting with Orange County SEO experts.

1. No Domains or Multiple Domains

Of course, you can’t show up on the search engines if there’s nothing to show in the first place! You need to have a website and a domain name established before Google can pick you up and start ranking.

Your web address should match your URL. If you’ve got a couple of domain variations, make sure they all lead to the one website with proper redirects; otherwise, it may not get indexed properly. You also want to do this because the URL you want indexed may get shifted to the side for variations you only planned on using for redirects.

2. Lack of Mobile-Friendliness

The Internet can be accessed from just about anything these days. From smartphones to watches to tablets to TV screens, a lot of devices can browse the web. In fact, desktop searches account for less than 50% of web searches today, which is quite staggering if you think about it.

With that said, your website needs to be mobile-friendly or at least function properly when viewed through a mobile device. If not, it largely takes away from user experience, which is why Google may have taken you off their rankings.

3. Spaghetti Code

As long as the front end of your website looks great, the back end shouldn’t really matter, right? Wrong!

If your website has a ton of spaghetti code, you need to work on untangling it fast. The more complex your code is, the more Google’s bots have to work on crawling and indexing your website properly. And since the bot doesn’t have all day to sift through your code, this can affect your visibility on Google.

Your code needs to be clean no matter what language (e.g., HTML, CSS, Javascript) you use.

4. Slow Loading Speed

The average Internet user isn’t the only person who gets annoyed when a website loads slowly—Google’s crawlers get super annoyed too! It takes away precious time they could otherwise use crawling through faster-loading websites. Again, they just don’t have the time to wait for your website to load! You have to make things easier for them.

There are many reasons behind page loading speeds. It could be related to the aforementioned spaghetti code, where too much stuff loading and unloading all at once can drag things along. You could also have too many images or plugins running.

Whatever the case, please use the Web Page Test to identify any issues with your loading speed.

5. Lots of Fluff and Filler

Orange County SEO experts agree that posting regular, high-quality content is essential for ranking high on Google. So, if your website is stagnant with barely anything to offer, then that’s probably the reason you’re not showing up on the search engines. With so many websites around with fun, educational content, why should Google put you above them?

6. Lack of User-Friendliness

Google has high standards when it comes to ensuring great user experiences for everybody. Oftentimes, the reason Google sanctions websites is because it is a hassle for their customers. The website could either be riddled with adverts, be hard to navigate, be hard to read, or just be difficult to use in general.

When developing your website, you need to step into your readers’ shoes. You want to make sure the website is one you can spend hours looking at and reading through!

7. Redirect Loops

Redirects are quite useful for deleted or transferred pages. When a person lands on the wrong URL, the redirect takes them to the proper page.

Now, if you were a bit sloppy with your code, you could end up having a redirect loop. This happens when someone gets redirected to somewhere, then redirected elsewhere, then redirected elsewhere, then redirected to where they came from. You’re leading customers and Google nowhere! 

Sometimes it happens because of your hosting provider too. In this case, contact them and see if they can fix it on their end.

What matters the most is breaking the infinite loop!