Solved: Why are redirected pages not getting indexed?

cossettej · ‎07-02-2018

[Note: The title of this post has been edited by a moderator.]

Hello,

About a month ago the Google Search Console started reporting that my website search results essentially dropped to zero. Digging a little deeper, I noticed that this corresponded to a sharp increase in pages that are no longer indexed due to a "redirect". As of right now, pretty much all of my main pages (71 in total) are excluded from the index because of this problem but I never set up any 301 redirects on these urls.

It looks like they are all redirecting to the same url that is being navigated to. For example, here is the google fetch result that I'm getting for the page

https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/building-by-design

<html>

<head>

<title>Redirecting to https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/building-by-design</title>

</head>

<body>

Redirecting to <a href="https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/building-by-design">https://passionatelycurioussci.we...>.

</body>

</html

As far as I can tell, the url "https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/building-by-design" automatically redirects to "https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/building-by-design" which is exactly the same thing but since that redirect is there, the page gets excluded from my index.

Is there a way that I can get rid of these unnecessary redirects? Why did they randomly just show up a month ago?

Thanks!

cossettej · ‎07-09-2018

I figured it out!! It turns out that I was tracking the url http://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/ and all of the pages were redirecting to https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/ as of the time that I saw my index drop off. It was such a subtle redirect change that I didn't notice the difference and I was thrown off the track by how abruptly I saw a drop in my search tracking.

I was able to reindex and track the https:// domain and I can see that my site is indeed still showing up in the searches.

Thanks for your help looking into this!

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Adam7 · ‎07-02-2018

Is it only blog post pages that are doing this, @cossettej?

cossettej · ‎07-02-2018

Unfortunately, no. It's happening with all of the pages that I make like http://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/collections.html or http://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/favorite-lessons.html

It's even redirecting my home page http://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/

Adam7 · ‎07-03-2018

Hmm... There's really nothing on the site that should be causing that; if it was you'd be getting redirected just like Google. Did you just set up webmaster tools or have you had it set up for a while?

cossettej · ‎07-03-2018

I set up the google analytics back in the beginning of April and there is a clear event that took place at the end of May that created a huge spike in my pages that were excluded from the index and essentially a flatlining of search results.

Is it possible that the redirect isn't noticed when loading the page because it's just "redirecting" to that same url? That seems to be what Google is reporting.

I'm stumped...

Adam7 · ‎07-03-2018

That is most likely due to changes around the GDPR laws from Europe that went into effect on May 25th. Google Analytics tracks by cookie, and if someone doesn't give consent for cookies to bet set then it doesn't track them. Unfortunately, pretty much every cookie-based analytics service took a hit from this.

cossettej · ‎07-09-2018

I figured it out!! It turns out that I was tracking the url http://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/ and all of the pages were redirecting to https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/ as of the time that I saw my index drop off. It was such a subtle redirect change that I didn't notice the difference and I was thrown off the track by how abruptly I saw a drop in my search tracking.

I was able to reindex and track the https:// domain and I can see that my site is indeed still showing up in the searches.

Thanks for your help looking into this!

Adam7 · ‎07-09-2018

Glad you figured it out! Thanks for posting what you discovered.

anthea29 · ‎10-26-2018

Hello, and I must start out by saying I dont know anything about this. or how to fix it., tryinh to learn online.

My website is doing terribly lately and I opened webmaster to see this.

I made a few changes a year ago which started the problem , then it began to improve and now doing really badly.

Webmaster results

688 pages

Page with redirect

Status: Excluded

I dont know how to fix this!

I have tried watching tutorials etc, I think it may have something to do with http or https.but no idea what that means!

Please any help appreaciated, I am losing lots of work!

https://www.fantailphotos.com/

lsandor7 · ‎08-28-2018

I have been trying to figure this out for two weeks! Thank you!! My problem was the exact same thing; http:// instead of https://

Sounds like a miscommunication somewhere.

Adam7 · ‎08-29-2018

What site are you having trouble with, @lsandor7?

anthea29 · ‎10-26-2018

how did you solve this? if you can explain in simple terms I have no clue!

Weddingsingers · ‎12-23-2018

Hi,

how did you manage to solve this?

gr Lisette

alexandrareader · ‎02-09-2019

I've seen the same thing on google for my site. Please explain how you managed this?

''I was able to reindex and track the https:// domain and I can see that my site is indeed still showing up in the searches.''

Bernadette3 · ‎02-09-2019

Hi @alexandrareader Did you recently enable SSL on your site? Trying to catch up on this thread and want to make sure I fully understand your issue. Thanks!

alexandrareader · ‎02-10-2019

Yes, Bernadette, I recently updated from http to https through weebly by enabling the SSL certificate and over 400k likes disappeared. As the certificate is only for 90 days and I gather weebly auto renews, it will become a new certificate and I'm concerned all the social likes will disappear again. As they are part of the ranking of a site it's important to know

Adam7 · ‎02-10-2019

The site address will remain the same when a certificate renews, so that shouldn't cause any likes to disappear. Facebook ties likes to the site address, so they are only affected if the URL changes.

perfoliate · ‎04-09-2019

I'm having a similar issue but slightly different. I recently created a new site for my business. Google will not index the homepage because it says it's a redirect. The redirect link is coming from an unrelated website that had a link to my website from a previous time. I have no control over that website or their links to mine.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time in advance.

Bernadette3 · ‎04-09-2019

What is the name of the site, @perfoliate Also, if you could provide a screenshot of the error you see that would be helpful. Thanks!

perfoliate · ‎04-09-2019

www.falmouthjewelryshop.com

perfoliate · ‎04-09-2019

Actually I was able so solve my issue. The google search console had verified it under the http protocol. I entered the https one and it solved problem.