Google Search Console is a great tool, but some times it sends alerts that are confusing and hard to understand. Usually they reference certain pages not being indexed correctly. This page will go through common issues they report and how to fix them.
"Not found (404)" errors
Not found errors typically mean that a page that was previously indexed in Google (maybe because you had a website on a different service, or maybe you deleted a page on your Podpage) can no longer be found.
If it's a page you care about, then make sure the new URL is the same as the old one that was deleted. Or, if you have a new version of the page at a different URL, set up a 301 Redirect for the page in Podpage.
"Page with redirect" errors
Google might tell you that pages on your site are not indexed because they are redirects. This, most likely, is something you can ignore, as it happens for lots of reasons. When you get this email, go to your console and look for a list of pages that have this issue. Here's an example:
It's helpful for you to visit the pages in this report and see what's going on. If you were to do that, you'd see a few common issues:
Slash Redirects
URL #1 mentioned redirects to itself with a "/" at the end. All podpage pages, if visited without a slash at the end, will permanently redirect to the same URL and add a slash. We do this so Google doesn't index both the non-/ and the / ending. This is fine. It's an error you can ignore, because Google will index the one with the /
This is also the problem reported for URL #3, 5, 7, and 9
http → https Redirects
The second URL mentioned has http:// at the beginning. Podpage will automatically redirect all non-https traffic to a secure URL. So in this case, http://www.yourpodcast.com will permanently redirect to https://www.yourpodcast.com. Again, this is something you can ignore, because Google knows this is a permanent redirect.
Episode Number Redirects
Because it's awesome, Podpage automatically creates a short link for every episode using the episode number. So for episode #5 will automatically get the link yourpodcast.com/5
If Google has indexed that URL in the past when you were on a different platform, it might try to visit it and get redirected. This might throw a flag up and they might report it to you, which is what's happening with $4, 6, 8, and 10. It's okay. We set those to permanent redirects, so Google knows from that point forward that the number is the old URL and is redirected to the episode page where the URL is human readable. (www.yourpodcast.com/awesome-interview)
domain.com → www.domain.com Redirects
If you've set Podpage to be at your root domain name (not a subdomain like podcast.yourdomain.com), then www.yourdomain.com. This is pretty standard for the web. So, if someone visits your page without the www, we permanently redirect them to your site. This, like the others, is okay to ignore. Google will re-index the new URL instead of the old because we are redirecting them.
Crawled/Discovered - currently not indexed
This is a really annoying error. It basically says Google knows the pages exist but want to see some more evidence of their value before indexing them. The good news, is you can usually get Google to index these by clicking on the link in the Console and then clicking "Request Indexing".
We dug deeper about this on a recent webinar. Please see the video below for more information.
Still need help?
Are the cases you're seeing not covered above, or are you still curious about something you're seeing in these reports? Don't hesitate to reach out to support and we'll be happy to help!