Understanding a Sudden Drop in Non-Indexed Pages During Programmatic SEO
Introduction
In the realm of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), monitoring the status of your website’s pages is crucial for ensuring visibility and organic traffic. A common area of concern for SEO professionals is the fluctuation of indexed and non-indexed pages within a website. Recently, I encountered an intriguing scenario during my experiment with programmatic SEO: the number of non-indexed pages on my site suddenly decreased from 128 to just 8, while the overall indexed pages remained unchanged. This article explores what such a change could signify and offers guidance on interpreting these signals effectively.
Scenario Overview
- Initial Situation: Prior to the change, my website had approximately 128 pages marked as “not indexed” in search console or SEO tools.
- Event: Suddenly, this number dropped to only 8 pages.
- Observation: The total count of indexed pages remained roughly the same, with no new pages appearing in the index.
Understanding the Terminology
- Indexed Pages: Pages that search engines have crawled and added to their database, making them appear in search results.
- Non-Indexed Pages: Pages that exist on your website but are not included in search engine indexes, often due to various reasons such as being blocked, noindexed, or not crawled yet.
Possible Interpretations
-
Reclassification of Pages:
The decline from 128 to 8 non-indexed pages might indicate that search engines have crawled and reclassified many pages as indexed. This process could occur if pages previously blocked by robots.txt or meta tags now allow crawling, or if noindex directives were removed. -
Pages Being Indexed:
The key question is whether these pages are now indexed or if the status simply changed in the tools you’re using for monitoring. If pages that were previously flagged as “not indexed” now appear as “indexed,” it suggests successful crawling and indexing. -
Indexing Errors or Delays:
Alternatively, this change could reflect a correction of previous errors, such as pages being mistakenly excluded, or a delay in the search engine processing your sitemap or crawl instructions. -
Programmatic SEO Impact:
When employing programmatic SEO—automated generation and management of large numbers of pages—ensuring proper meta tags, robots directives, and sitemap updates is vital. Improper configurations can lead to pages being overlooked or misclassified.
Key Take