Need help please. I created my art website on Rapidweaver a few years ago and I update it about once a month without any problems but I’m no good at Troubleshooting so when something goes wrong I don’t know what to check or tweak.
Problem I have is my site has always appeared at the top of Google’s page one but this week I’ve noticed the Home page doesn’t appear anywhere, all the other pages do but not the Home page. I’ve checked the information that I have in the Page Inspector and it doesn’t appear to have anything missing (that I can see) and I haven’t changed anything in that area.
I’ve re-published the Home page a few times today but no change. I also re-published the entire site but still no change. I’ve done a search on two different computers but it still doesn’t appear.
I used to just search my name and my site appeared at the top. Today even adding the word ‘Artist’ ie ‘Mary Davidson Artist’ doesn’t find it. I just get the gallery websites that my name appears on first then some of my other pages appear but my Home page is not found.
If anyone could suggest some area that I should check please I would be extremely grateful.
I meant to add my Home page has definitely published as it can be found by going through the other pages.
The information in the URL browser box comes up as www.marydavidson.co.uk/index.html which I think is normal. It just can’t be found in a search.
Not sure why this is happening Mary, it could be because you are not using an SSL on your site (meaning you have http and not https, not sure if Google is penalizing you for that), but I am just not sure on that. One thing to note though, anything you do today to fix this issue, probably will not be affected until Google crawls your site again, which can take time. I believe you can request this to happen, but not sure.
Same here: A search on Google for “Mary Davidson” returned you site as #4 for me on page one. (Click Summary to see screen shot - your site is under the photos)
I can see that! Thank you but it makes no sense to me. I am not getting my site coming up at all. Not sure what that means. I have 3 Macs here and I get the same results from Google on each one. I’m completely baffled now.
Thank you zeebe I see you didn’t even enter my name in the search just Scottish still life artist and yet you found me on page 2. I did the same search just now and kept going page after page and still didn’t find my site.
zeebe unfortunately I don’t know what “using SSL on your site” means. or “have http and not https”. It was all working fine and I haven’t changed anything.
I hate when problems arise as it becomes a huge grey area to me!
hello… on a whim try this: open a new “incognito” window and see what you get. (or, if using Chrome, log out and try.) You don’t say what browser you are using. Try a different one.
(I’m unclear if you mean your live site is not working at all or if it’s not coming up in search results.)
Just because a website once appeared at the top of Google’s results doesn’t mean it will stay there forever. Google is always changing and updating their algorithms and websites that don’t keep up sometimes move down the rankings.
SSL certificates are a ranking factor these days and Google (and others) have been advising people for the past 2 years to get one.
I did a search on Google UK and you’re currently at number 3, see screenshot.
Neil thanks for that. I am still baffled as we are constantly checking on separate Macs here and that particular page is nowhere to be found. You are definitely getting totally different results.
Sorry one more question … is it odd that two of my other pages can be easily found though?
When I search the words “mary davidson scottish artist” the top entry is my ‘exhibitions’ page and the second entry is my “biography” page. but the Home page doesn’t appear.
Yes, incognito means private browsing. If you are not logged in to a Google account then don’t worry about this. I’ve seen times where, if logged in, the owner does not see the same things as others. Was just trying to eliminate possible things.
Hi Greg - yes Safari. I’ve just tried searching the words ‘mary davidson artist’ using private browsing and I’m afraid the result was much the same … Fotheringham Gallery at top, Strathearn gallery next, two of my other pages next, then more galleries right to the bottom of page one. Page two mostly Pinterest and some more galleries, page 3 much the same. Absolutely no sign of my Home page.
SERP (search engine results page) vary quite a bit depending on the location the search is performed from. You don’t have to be signed in to Google or Bing for them to determine your location, they’ll use your IP address to proximate where you are.
There’s thousands of factors that effect SERP ranking, yes SSL is one factor, that not new. The “new” part of SSL with Googles July release of chrome, is it warns that the site is not secure if it’s not an HTTPS site.
As has been pointed out search engines constantly change their ranking algorithms, and competitors also change their sites so it’s a moving target.
Wow DaveFox - how did you manage that. When I put in just my name to google I get different folk called Mary Davidson plus a couple of galleries with my own name. If I search for Mary Davidson Artist here is the screenshot below of what I get and my home page is not there …
Thanks for that teefers - I’ve now been reading all about this to try and get my head around why I’m not seeing what everyone else is seeing. It would just be nice to be able to find my Home page again without having to go via one of my other pages.
Thanks
Mary
TBH, I’m surprised you’re listed at all in Google following their new guidelines on HTTPS as your page is now marked ‘Not Secure’ - I’d get ‘HTTPS’ ASAP!
