Why Isn’t Your Site Ranking? Common Problems and How to Fix Crawlability issues
Fix crawlability issues. Your site must rank in the world’s most popular search engines to reach your audience. Before it can rank, it needs to be crawlable. In the old days of search engine optimization, crawlers from Google and other search providers didn’t have to look for much. Today, there are numerous points where you need to optimize if you want to outrank the competition.
If your site isn’t ranking, it might not be crawlable. Usually, this comes down to a few simple tweaks to optimize your web presence and build a better foundation moving forward.
Learn how to fix crawlability issues and ensure you reach your intended audience.
1. Bad Certificates
Search engines prioritize secure websites. HTTPS/SSL Certificates are a must if you want your site to rank.
If you’re having crawlability issues, check that your certificates are up to date and correctly installed.
Some browser settings and security software will prevent users from accessing sites that aren’t secure, so installing up to date certificates is essential for all sites you own or manage.
2. Improve Poor Site Structure to Fix Crawlability issues
Site structure affects performance and user experience. A poorly structured site is a headache to browse and manage. Sites with overly complex structures will rank poorly or not at all in the worst cases.
Avoid page structures beyond the third layer. Categorizing your pages for menus is efficient and intuitive for users, but becomes unintuitive if these branch off in too many areas.
There are exceptions to this, and it makes sense for businesses with multiple product or service categories. Amazon and similar e-retailers have numerous categories that aid user navigation and the logical separation of content. Even in these cases, you must logically arrange page menus and site folder structures to be crawlable.
Start simple, and only add layers when it aids user navigation.
3. Orphaned Pages
Have you noticed that some pages are listed and ranking in search engines while others are nowhere to be found? These could be orphaned pages. Orphaned pages are those that don’t have a path from the homepage. They exist on the server and can be accessed directly with a URL but don’t appear in menus or internal links.
These pages are harmful to the SEO of your overall site. Get them found by incorporating them into existing categories and folder structures.
4. Broken Links
Internal and external links can aid SEO and offer value to page visitors. However, web crawlers get stuck when links don’t lead anywhere.
You can audit links manually with smaller sites, ensuring that all of your links are configured to reach the intended page.
All modern content management systems have built-in broken link tools, or you can add them with plugins when using popular platforms like WordPress.
It’s best practice to double-check all links on a page before publishing. It’s easy to stay on top of this when you include it in your workflow for publishing new pages and blog articles.
5. Long Page Load Times
Site performance affects ranking. Search providers prioritize fast sites because it enhances the end-user experience. If your site is slow, you’ll fall behind your competitors.
Optimizing performance isn’t always straightforward, but there are effective strategies that can make a massive difference.
- Keep page file sizes small by optimizing CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
- Compress images across your site to reduce load times.
- Optimize your site for browser caching to offload some of the load time and storage to the user’s cache.
Image compression is one of the most critical aspects of improving page load time. PNG and JPEG are the two most common formats used for modern pages. PNG is ideal for complex and highly detailed images as it retains the most quality after compression. JPEG is best for simple images with fewer details. Test your site’s performance and image quality to determine the best image format on an image-by-image basis.
6. Bad Metadata
Metadata plays a vital role in crawlability. It’s best practice to utilize metadata across every page in several areas.
- Meta titles (the page’s title tag) should accurately reflect the content in natural language.
- Add alt-text tags to images that are clear and descriptive.
- Write meta descriptions for every page. These should be related to the content, concise, and informative to a human reader.
Bots crawl your content before users see it. Metadata helps bots identify what pages are about. However, all of your content, including metadata, should also be naturally readable for a human. Avoid keyword spam, be informative, and maintain the voice of your page. Content optimized for search engines AND humans performs better.
7. Redirect Loops
Redirect loops occur when a URL of Page A sends traffic to Page B, which then sends it back to Page A. If it sounds confusing, it’s because it is. It even confuses search engine crawler bots. When a bot gets stuck in an infinite loop, it won’t be able to progress through your site, leaving much of it unindexed and unlisted.
It usually happens after making URL changes. You change the URL of a page for optimization, but you still want users to be able to find the content they’re looking for. You leave the old link active but redirect to the new page. It’s normal to do so, and it creates a good user experience.
Loops occur because of misconfigured plugins and content management systems. You can find redirect loops with site audit tools built into your content management system or through your developer or SEO provider.
8. Misconfigured Robots.txt
Search engines look at your Robots.txt file before crawling your pages. Misconfiguration can prevent the crawler from proceeding, leaving your site unranked and undiscoverable.
A “disallow” setting in the file stops a crawler, while disallowing specific folders limits the crawler. Disallow is helpful if you have dev pages hosted on the same server as your live site, but misconfiguration can leave everything in the dark.
- Check your Robots.txt file for “Disallow: /”. It stops the entire site from being crawled. You can replace the line with “Allow: /” to make the site crawlable.
- You can disallow specific folders with the line “Disallow: /examplefolder/” but keep track of this to ensure the right content is visible.
Only make changes if you’re familiar with the Robots.txt file and how it works. You can get assistance from your web developer or a trusted SEO service company.
Improving and Fix Crawlability issues with a Reliable SEO Service Company
Improving search performance is just one aspect of a successful site. We can help you identify improvement points while developing a digital strategy that drives engagement and lead generation. Let us help you realize your vision with crawlable pages, optimized content, and the best user experience.
