Troubleshoot SEO issues

Search engine optimization (SEO) takes time, and results vary based on many factors. If your site isn’t appearing in search results as expected, this guide will help you identify and resolve common issues.

Search engines typically take two to six weeks or more to index a new site. Indexing means a search engine has found your site, analyzed its content, and added it to its search database so it can appear in search results. Several factors affect how quickly your site appears in search results:

To check if Google has indexed your site, follow these steps:

1. Open a web browser and go to google.com.
2. In the search box, type site:yourgroovysite.com (replace “yourgroovysite.com” with your actual site address).
3. Press Enter or Return.

If you see your site’s pages in the results, Google has indexed your site. If you see no results like in the screenshot below, your site hasn’t been indexed yet:

If your site has not been indexed yet, follow these steps to verify your site allows search engines to index it:

1. Go to your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Settings → Reading.
3. Make sure your site visibility is set to public and the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” checkbox is not checked.
4. Click “Save Changes” if you made any updates.

Learn more about privacy settings.

If you have launched your site recently, or just now made it public and indexable, it can take Google and other search engines between 2-6 weeks to discover your website. By using WordPress.com, you can be sure your site is well-optimized for search engines. So for now, you can wait for Google to list your website.

You can accelerate the process of Google indexing your site by verifying your site with Google Search Console.

Follow our step-by-step guide to verify your site with Google.

When you search for topics related to your site, your pages may not appear on the first page of results. This depends on content quality, competition, and many other factors that search engines evaluate.

Search engines use hundreds of factors to determine which pages appear first in search results. No one can guarantee first-page placement because:

• Your competitors may have more established content.
• Other sites may have more backlinks pointing to them.
• Search engines favor content that best matches the searcher’s intent.

Ranking higher in search results takes time and consistent effort. For detailed tips on improving your content and SEO strategy, visit our free course on optimizing your site for search engines.

New pages typically take weeks or months to appear higher in search results. Search engines need time to:

• Discover and index your new content.
• Evaluate how users interact with your pages.
• Compare your content against competing pages.

Search engines often rewrite meta descriptions to better match what users are searching for. Search engines may show different text instead of your meta description when:

• Your meta description doesn’t match the search query well.
• Search engines find other text on your page that better answers the query.
• Your meta description is too short, too long, or contains duplicate content.

Learn how to write effective meta descriptions for your site.

Note: Even with an optimized meta description, search engines may still choose to display different text based on the search query. This is normal behavior and something a site owner cannot control.

You may see error messages in search results if your site was recently made public or if you haven’t added meta descriptions yet.

“A description for this result is not available because of this site’s robots.txt”

This message appears when you recently changed your site visibility from private to public. Google still has old information about your site and needs time to update.

Allow two to six weeks for Google to crawl and index your site. The description will update on its own.

Note: Microsoft’s Bing search engine shows “We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us” in these cases.

“No Information Available for This Page”

This message appears when search engines indexed your site before you added a meta description.

To resolve this issue:

1. Add or update your meta description for the affected pages.
2. Allow two to six weeks for search engines to re-index your site and display the new information.

When you delete content from your site, search engines will eventually remove it from search results. This process can take a few days to a few weeks. You can also request immediate removal from Google to expedite the process.

For faster removal, follow these steps:

1. Verify your site with the Google Search Console.
2. Sign in to Google Search Console and select your site.
3. Navigate to Removals in the left sidebar.
4. Click on the “New Request” link.
5. Enter the URL of the page you want to remove.
6. Follow the prompts to submit your request.

Google typically processes removal requests within a few days.

Keep the page but remove it from search results

Plugin-enabled sites can keep specific pages from being added to search results.

Note: If the page was already indexed in search engines, it may take several weeks for search engines to remove the page from search results after you apply these settings. Or, you can request immediate removal from Google.

WordPress.com automatically provides a robots.txt file for every site. You do not need to edit this file for your site to appear in search engines or to improve your SEO.

Most site owners will never need to customize their robots.txt file. The default file works correctly for standard SEO needs.

This section of the guide applies to sites with the WordPress.com Business and Commerce plan. If you have a Business plan, make sure to activate it. For free sites and sites on the Personal and Premium plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.

If you have specific technical requirements that require customizing your robots.txt file, you have a few options:

• Create a custom robots.txt file and upload it to your root directory via SFTP.
• Use a plugin designed to edit your robots.txt file.
• Use plugins designed to improve SEO, which include settings for editing your robots.txt file.

Note: Most plugins are developed by third-party developers. They will be more familiar with installing, configuring, and troubleshooting issues with their plugin. Contact the plugin developer for help with their specific plugin.

WordPress.com includes built-in SEO features that cover the main SEO needs for most sites. Before hiring an expert, make sure you’ve:

• Verified your site is public and indexable.
• Added meta descriptions to your key pages.
• Submitted your site to Google Search Console.
• Created quality content that addresses your audience’s needs.
• Reviewed our guide to optimize your site for search engines.

Consider hiring an SEO expert if:

• Your site has been live for several months with no improvement in search results.
• You’ve implemented basic SEO practices but aren’t seeing results.
• You’re in a highly competitive industry.
• You need help with technical SEO issues like site speed or structured data.

There is no setting, plugin, service, or person that can guarantee your site shows up first in search rankings. If someone is trying to sell you SEO services that promise fast results, they may be trying to drive fake traffic to your site. This can penalize your site’s SEO and lock you out of participating in ad programs.