Google’s John Mueller answered a question about WordPress sites that were completely de-indexed from Google Search after switching to another web hosting platform. Mr. Mueller’s answer tells us where to start investigating why that happens.
Removed from index after site migration
A question posed to the Google Office Hours Podcast revolved around my site disappearing from search engine results pages after I migrated it from WordPress to “self-publishing” and my site subsequently being de-indexed.
This question could mean that they were hosting their site on the WordPress platform managed by WordPress.com, but have since moved the site to another web host (usually referred to as self-hosting). there is.
Migrating your WordPress site to another web host involves a few relatively simple steps, but problems can occur at almost every step of the process.
We’ll discuss migrating your WordPress site in more detail later as it’s relevant to your question.
John Mueller answers questions
Muller answered the question from the perspective of analyzing the website itself. In this particular case, that’s the best place to start. The reason is that this question suggests that the site can be accessed online.
Here’s the question.
“After the site moved from WordPress to self-publishing, almost all of my publications disappeared from the index. Search results are ‘0’. ”
John Mueller responded:
“If your website drops out of search results and isn’t indexed at all right after you make the transition, my guess is that your new website is somehow blocking the search engines, or at least I think it might be blocking Google. Let’s analyze the data in Search Console and go from there.”
Search Console may show you the exact date your page started being removed from Google’s index and the reason why it’s being removed. Common reasons include the page not found (404) or Google being blocked from crawling by robots.txt. These are the starting points for determining what’s going on on Google’s side.
Diagnose if WordPress is blocking Google
This type of issue usually occurs when your WordPress site is hidden from search engines. This means there is a robots.txt entry that blocks search engines from indexing your site.
Google Search Console will notify you that this issue is occurring through the Page Indexing report. This report will indicate that the site is blocked by robots.txt in the column labeled “Reasons why pages aren’t indexed” in the report.
If so, you’ll see that this is actually the case in your robots.txt file, which is typically located at the root of your domain /robots.txt (example.com/robots.txt).
If your page is blocked by Robots.txt, a WordPress setting that blocks search indexing may have been applied at some point during the migration.
This is a native setting in the WordPress admin panel that can be accessed here.
Settings 🡪 Reading.
There you’ll find a setting called “Search Engine Visibility” with a checkbox that says “Prevent search engines from indexing this site.”
Screenshot of WordPress display settings
In that case, just uncheck that box and you’re done.
If you have a robots.txt entry blocking search engines but the box above is not checked, another plugin may be doing it, such as an SEO plugin or a migration plugin. there is. If not, the entry may have been inserted by someone who helped you move it. In that case, it’s easy to download robots.txt, edit the file in a text file editor, and upload it again.
Other issues may include not being able to update your DNS settings to point to your new web hosting service, or there may be an issue with your web host. We recommend starting your research with Google Search Console.
Listen to Google’s answer here, starting at the 7:24 mark.
Featured image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi