Class 5 - Google Search Console Part 2 |
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Alternate Page With Proper Canonical Tag
This means that both pages have a canonical tag. There is no problem. Google has also indexed the page that should have been indexed, the one you wanted, the one you set as the canonical page, and the one you marked as the preferred page. Google has indexed that same page. If Google has indexed the page you wanted, then what is the issue?
The only problem is that your sitemap is showing this URL to Google from somewhere. So, this page has already been indexed. That is a different page. Now, you are checking the indexing status of the other page, the one that was never supposed to be indexed. You never told Google to index it. So, what Google is saying is, ‘I did exactly what you told me to do. Why are you asking me why this page is not indexed?
So, either ignore it because it is not a problem. ‘Alternate page with proper canonical tag’ is not a problem. If you still want to remove it because you do not like seeing this error in Google Search Console, then check whether this non-www URL is present in your sitemap, added in any internal links, or appearing from somewhere else. If it is, remove it. Otherwise, ignore it. ‘Alternate page with proper canonical tag’ is not an issue.
Duplicate Without User-Selected Canonical
What Google is saying is simply that your page is a duplicate of another page, and you have not set a canonical tag.
Meaning: SEO did not provide any canonical
Solution: Add the correct canonical tag
Canonical Error Types:
- Canonical URL like https://www.abc.com/page1, https://abc.com/page1
- Same content on both pages with the same URL.
- Someone may be publishing the same content from your website on their website.
When a page sets its own URL as the canonical URL, it is called a self-canonical tag.
Exclude by “noindex” Tag
If you have added a noindex tag to the page, Google will not index it. Correct? If the page has a noindex tag, it will not be indexed. So, what do you need to do? Go to the page and remove the noindex tag. Once you remove the noindex tag from the page, the problem will be solved.
But when “index” is used together with “follow,” it has a purpose. “Index” means Google should index this page. “Follow” means Google should follow all the links present on this page. Now, let’s say you use index and nofollow together. What does that mean? It means Google should index the page, but it should not follow the links on that page. In other words, it should not visit those links. Whether Google follows this instruction or not depends on Google.
Server Error (5XX)
Meaning: The hosting server is not giving the page/files.
Solution: Talk to hosting server support.
Soft 404
Soft 404 is a Google-specific error. A normal 404 is an HTTP status code, which means every search engine and every system understands that the page was not found. But Soft 404 is Google’s own term. According to Google, a Soft 404 is a page that should have been a 404 but is not.
When should a page not exist? If a page has no value, then it should not exist. Correct? For example, a page is empty. You open google.com/abrakadabra, the page opens, but there is nothing on it. In this situation, according to Google, that page should not exist. If the page did not exist, Googlebot would not have to spend energy crawling it. That is why Google calls such pages “soft 404” and does not index them.
Not Found (404)
This website or this server does not have this page. So, how do we fix a 404 error? We need to fix our internal links. Never redirect 404 pages to another page because Google does not want that. If you want to find where the 404 page is coming from, inspect the 404 page and check the referring page. The 404 page is linked from that referring page.
Blocked by Robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells bots which pages they should crawl and which pages they should ignore. If this error appears, it means Googlebot is not allowed to access that page. Go to the robots.txt file, and if the URL is blocked, allow it. The problem will be solved.
Crawled Currently Not Indexed
Crawled Currently Not Indexed” means that Googlebot has crawled the pages, but it has not indexed them.
This means that the quality of your page’s content is poor. The solution is to add internal links to the page from other pages, generate backlinks for it, and optimize the content. You should also update the meta title, meta description, and even the URL. First, change the meta title and meta description and wait for 7 days. If the page gets indexed, that’s fine. Otherwise, optimize the content and follow the remaining steps.
Meaning: Poor-quality page
Solution:
a. Change title/description
b. Change URL
c. Increase internal links to this page
d. Create backlinks to this page
e. Optimizing content
Discovered - Currently Not Indexed
Discovered – Currently not indexed” means that Googlebot has discovered the URL, but it has not crawled it yet.
Meaning: Slow Googlebot or poor-quality website
Solution:
a. Wait for 7-10 days
b. Change the URL
c. Change title/description
d. Improve the quality of the website