Page Indexing

Crown Street Lighting
2 weeks, 2 days ago

Rank Math free

We have a Woocommerce site (crownstreetlighting.co.uk) with a little over 3000 products and about 120 category pages. However, since switching from Yoast to Rank Math plugin in November 2024 we have noticed a considerable rise in page indexing errors in Google Search Console, resulting in a huge decline in organic traffic.

Somehow, we have 60.3k indexed pages and 518k not indexed!

This consists of 215k pages excluded by ‘noindex’ tag, 145k alternate pages with proper canonical tag, 18k pages with redirects, 3k duplicate pages without user-selected canonical, 3k not found (404s), 110 server errors (5xx), 42 soft 404, 15 redirect errors, 13 blocked due to access forbidden (403s) and 2 blocked due to other 4xx issues.

There are also 132.4k crawled but currently not indexed, 1070 duplicate (Goggle choose different canonical than user) and 68 discovered but currently not indexed.

There is clearly something wrong and we could use some advice on how to optimise the plugin to resolve these issue, please.

Many thanks

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

RankBot
2 weeks, 2 days ago
Hello,

We apologize for the issues you are facing with page indexing on your WooCommerce site. It sounds like a complex situation with a significant number of pages affected. Here are some steps you can take to address the various indexing issues:

1. Review Noindex Tags
- Check if the noindex tags are applied correctly. If there are pages that should be indexed but are marked as noindex, you will need to remove those tags.
2. Canonical Tags
- Ensure that canonical tags are set correctly on your pages. If you have duplicate content, make sure the canonical tag points to the preferred version of the page. You can refer to our guide on how to change canonical URLs.
3. Redirects
- Review the pages with redirects and ensure they are necessary. If there are unnecessary redirects, consider removing them or updating them to point to the correct pages.
4. 404 and Server Errors
- For the 404 errors, check if those pages should be redirected to relevant content or if they can be removed altogether. For server errors (5xx), investigate server logs to identify the cause and resolve any underlying issues.
5. Content Quality
- Conduct a content audit to identify thin or duplicate content. Improve or consolidate these pages to enhance their value. You may also consider adding internal links to important pages to help Google crawl them better.
6. Crawled but Not Indexed
- For pages that are crawled but not indexed, ensure that they provide unique and valuable content. Sometimes, Google may take time to index new or updated pages, so patience is also key.
7. Crawl Budget Optimization
- Since you have a large number of pages, optimizing your crawl budget is essential. Focus on improving the internal linking structure and removing low-quality pages from the index.
For more detailed guidance on fixing indexing issues, you can refer to our articles on fixing Google indexing issues and crawled – currently not indexed.

If you continue to experience difficulties after trying these steps, please reply to this ticket with any specific questions or additional details about your site, and a human agent from our support team will assist you further.

Thank you for raising this concern, and we hope this helps you get back on track with your site’s indexing!

Sources:
How to Fix Indexing Issues in Google Search Console » Rank Math

This is an automated reply from Rank Math Support Bot. Your ticket has been assigned to a human agent and we will get back to you shortly.
Ike
2 weeks ago
Hello,

Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

Here are some guides to help you understand and fix the issues reported by Google:
- Excluded by NoIndex Tag:
  https://rankmath.com/kb/excluded-by-noindex-tag/
- Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag: https://rankmath.com/kb/alternate-page-with-proper-canonical-tag/
- Page with redirect: https://rankmath.com/kb/page-with-redirect/
- Duplicate without user-selected canonical: https://rankmath.com/kb/duplicate-without-user-selected-canonical/
- Not found (404):
  https://rankmath.com/kb/find-the-souce-of-404-errors/
- Blocked due to other 4xx issue: https://rankmath.com/kb/blocked-due-to-other-4xx-issue/
- Blocked due to Access Forbidden: https://rankmath.com/kb/fix-blocked-due-to-access-forbidden-403-error/
- Crawled currently not indexed: https://rankmath.com/kb/crawled-currently-not-indexed/
- Discovered currently not indexed: https://rankmath.com/kb/discovered-currently-not-indexed/
Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.
Crown Street Lighting
1 week, 3 days ago

Rank Math free

What we’re seeing with some of the 404 errors is the original URLs aren’t redirecting to the cleaner & shorter URLs we have created by enabling the options to Remove Base, Remove Category Base, and Remove Parent Slugs in the WooCommerce settings section.

This results in the following…

https://crownstreetlighting.co.uk/product-category/floor-lamps/tripod-floor-lamps/

trying to redirect to:

https://crownstreetlighting.co.uk/floor-lamps/tripod-floor-lamps/

which, in turn should redirect to:

https://crownstreetlighting.co.uk/tripod-floor-lamps/

However, after the first step the next step fails and causes a 404 error.

Please advise. Thanks

Jeremy
1 week, 3 days ago

Hello,

Please note that we only handle the base slug of the URL. To control the permalink structure completely, you should do so in WordPress → Settings → Permalinks.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any other questions.

Crown Street Lighting
1 week, 1 day ago

Rank Math free

This is not the permalinks settings that have changed but the WooCommerce settings in the Rank Math plugin.
Jeremy
6 days, 4 hours ago
Hello,

Please use the following code below to fix the issue:
```
/**
 * Filter to disable custom product redirection.
 */
add_filter( 'rank_math/woocommerce/product_redirection', '__return_false' );
```
You may refer to this guide on how to add filters to your website: https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/

If the issue persists, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

We really look forward to helping you.