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Semalt Shares Key Reasons Why Google May Deindex A Site 


Finding out that one of your web pages has been deindexed by Google is usually a bitter pill to swallow. Regardless of how "insignificant" the page may appear to be, it can affect your entire website. 

To stop this from happening, we have researched some of the most common reasons why Google deindexes websites.

Why does Google remove content from its index?

Google has several reasons why it chooses to exclude some web pages. For example, Google may decide to deindex a page on its SERP because not every optimization is a good one. Google can also do this if it notices that the content doesn't provide factual or accurate answers to searchers. 

We've seen website owners publish spammy pages in pursuit of better SEO performance. Or these spammy pages are published intentionally, thinking they can deceive Google's algorithm. 

We've designed this article to show you reasons why a page could get deindexed by Google, so you avoid these vices and remain in Google's good graces. 

Practices That Causes Google Search To Deindex A Page or Site

Using certain Blackhat SEO techniques can easily attract punishment from Google, which usually includes getting deindexed. Here are some schemes to avoid so you can rank and remain visible on Google Search. 

Crawl blocking Through Robots.txt File



When you crawl block using a Robots.txt file, you basically deindex yourself from Google's SERP. Having a robots.txt file on a webpage stops search engine crawling bots from accessing the contents of a site. 

When the robot.txt has been implemented, you will see a standard error message warning that your page isn't getting displayed due to robots.txt. 

If you didn't want the page blocked, you could update your Robot.txt file so Google crawlers can index the site. 

Poor Guest Post

When done right, guest posting can be one of the best assets in the arsenal of an SEO expert. However, if it's done badly, there are adverse consequences. If you fail to set strict guidelines and you continue to publish low-quality guest posts which link back to spammy blogs, Google can derank your website. 

Google considers the links you use on your website as an indicator of how you should be considered. When you have guest posts from a quality website your website will be seen as a quality website. 

Spammy Pages

Did you know that Google discovers over a 25billion spammy pages every day? The website uses several spam strategies for different purposes. Google, on the other hand, has come up with many spam mechanisms to find spammy content on various websites. 

According to Google's 2019 Webspam report, the three top types of spam are: User Generated spam, link spam, and spam on hacked websites. When a web admin creates suspicious web pages that tris to trick crawling bots or its users, it faces the risk of getting discovered and removed from Google search results. 

Low value affiliated programs

It is possible that you are running affiliate programs on your WordPress website and you post descriptions of promoted products you find on other platforms. Google considers this behavior to be below standard and a poor representation of your management. We say this because it is poor content marketing. Doing this can remove your URL from Google search results. 

In general, Google will remove any content it finds related to thin affiliated pages and prevents them from appearing on SERP. This is because they are considered low-quality content. 

Search engines like Google take great pride in giving their audience only the best content so if they don't derank such websites, they can make them disappear from the SERP. 

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing was a common practice in the early years of SEO and search engine ranking. The practice referred to placing keywords throughout a content as many times as possible, even in unnatural places. Since search engines only looked for keywords in content, web admins tried to stuff in as many as possible. 

This practice was an easy way to increase your ranking, but that was it. Keyword stuffing a content usually renders it useless to the reader, so you get little to no user satisfaction or conversions. Google, on the other hand, can remove your URL because you keyword stuff your content. 

Ranking these days depends on a lot more than just keywords. With that in mind, the best keyword practice you can employ is placing your keywords naturally across your content. Places you should place your keywords includes: 
The frequency with which you can place keywords is up to you, but there are several tools you can use to ensure that you're not keyword stuffing your content. 

Every keyword should add value and be relevant to its placement. 

Duplicate Content



Google doesn't encourage plagiarism or duplicate content. It doesn't matter whether you copy another website's content or if you reuse the content of your web pages. Google removes content from its SERP if it is plagiarized. 

To avoid this, you should ensure that the contents you publish on your site are relevant and original. There are ways to include duplicate content on your site by using the noindex tag, no follow and HTML tags. 

Auto-Generated Content



Many web owners want to handle every aspect of their site on their own. This leaves them with little or no time to create quality content. As a result, they rely on content spinners as a quick fix. 

What many do not realize is using article spinners may be the reason why your content keeps on getting deindexed by Google. Auto-generated content is removed from search results because:

Cloaking 

Cloaking is against Google's guidelines. Cloaking is one way to get your website deindexed from Google's search results. Cloaking is a trick web admins use to deceive Google bots. While cloaking, Google's crawl bot can index a webpage as a text because that's what it seems. Users, on the other hand, can visit that page and find images. In this case, users can see something they weren't searching for while the Google bot is under the impression that the page answers the users' questions. 

Sneaky Redirects


Sneaky redirects display different content to human users than what is forwarded to the search engine. It is similar to cloaking, but in this case, we are discussing links. Having manipulative links puts your website at risk of getting deindexed by Google. 

Automated Queries

Sending automated queries from your site to Google is another way to get reindexed by the search engine. If you do send queries from bots or automated services, you should stop immediately. Some websites use this black hat trick to see how their website ranks. 

Google on the other hand has clearly stated in its Webmaster Guidelines that doing this is wrong and it can cause your site to get deindexed. In some instances, Google completely removes your URL from Google search. 

Excluding Webpages in Your Sitemap

Search Engine bots are attracted to site maps like magnets to metal. One benefit of having sitemaps on your site is that it helps Google understand your website at a glance in the following ways: 

Phishing and Malware Setup

Google forbids any form of cybercrimes. A website shouldn't be caught phishing or setting up dangerous malware like computer viruses. 

Google's content removal command will take down any content that:

Conclusion

Trying out every "SEO" insight you see on the internet can put your website in jeopardy. These are some of the practices you should avoid at all costs, except if you want specific pages on your website to get deindexed. 

Marketing aside, Semalt is dedicated to providing services and information that guarantees the safety of your website. To learn more about SEO and SERPS, kindly visit our website and go through our blog posts.

If you have questions or you've encountered a challenge, you can reach out to our customer service team!