Google not indexing m.version of website

[hbailey]

Hi

I am in need of some help!!!!

I have a m.version of my website and in the serp for mobile google has indexed the homepage of the site which is great; when you type the correct url of a page of the site such as m.skisolutions.com/ski-weekends it shows it correctly, however when you search through a keyword in the serp it will bring up the listing and google has indexed a 404. We have sitemap for mobile and the correct robots txt submitted.

The site was similar to a SPA with dynamic javascript so we have cached all the site onto prerender so there is an html server side to allow for any problems.
We previously had errors on the pages which have all been fixed and i have submitted these to google and fetch and rendered. But it still came back with only the homepage indexed.
Below is what we think has happened but we don't know how to get it corrected.

- since we provide canonical link, google is not indexing mobile sides, but knows to use the index from desktop site instead
- at some point, the mobile crawler to desktop/ski-weekends was redirected to 404, and as a result indexed 404 page for the keywords and index of this site for mobile purposes
- therefore it is crucial to tell google index that desktop/ski-weekends alternate was now fixed, so it can reindex it for mobile purposes. Based on the observation that currently mobile pages are not in index, I would assume that google skips them because they are already in index as mobile equivalents of the desktop site (which is good, since desktop reputation gets mobile results high up, but bad because of the 404 being indexed instead of mobile/ski-weekends)

Any help would be really appreciated.
Hannah

 

[CyberAlchemist]

Do you link to your mobile version on your desktop version on your website?
Do you try to ping m.version of your website in Google webmaster tool and see any errors?
Do you check robots.txt of your mobile version in Google webmaster tool and confirm that it has no error?
Have you ever tried to submit sitmap.xml of your mobile version to Google?

Answer some questions can help solve your problem why Google didn't index mobile version of your websites.

 

[hbailey]

Hi

No desktop version has the correct desktop version
m. version has its own webmaster tools and has no errors
robots is correct and no errors
mobile sitemap is submitted and showing all the correct pages but not indexing them

 

[SEOPub]

The page you listed is indexed.

google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Am.skisolutions.com%2Fski-weekends

They have not changed the meta description yet, but it is in the index.

I'd give it a little time and the meta description will likely update.

 

[hbailey]

Thanks we can view the pages but in the serp if you searched for the keyword ski weekends in will appear in the listings as a 404

 

[SEOPub]

I would go into Search Console and request to remove the 404 URL from the index.

It will likely work itself out once Google crawls the site a few more times, but I would do that anyhow. I would also add a noindex tag to the 404 URL.

 

[hbailey]

So essentially not have a 404 while were trying to correct the problem because the 404 is pulling through a 200 status

 

[SEOPub]

No. You still have a live 404 page.

There is just no reason to have a 404 page indexed in Google.

 

[hbailey]

Ahh i get you now thank you so much

Hi do i want to

temporary remove from index and cache
remove from cache only
temporary hide from directory

 

[SEOPub]

Hi do i want to

temporary remove from index and cache
remove from cache only
temporary hide from directory

I would choose the first option, and also add the noindex tag to the page.

404 pages are important for your users, but really there is no need for one to be in the Google index.

 

[hbailey]

Sorry just one more question,

If you search for ski weekends the meta titles, descriptions are correct but the url in /404. If I hide no index the 404 will it then crawl and link the correct url?

Thanks we already have the correct canonicalization and relevant redirects following google best practices in place. Creating a responsive template isnt an option at the moment.

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

Eventually, Google should figure it out whether you noindex it or not. I would just noindex it to 1) speed things along and 2) make sure it doesn't happen again.

 

[hbailey]

hbailey

Hi

thanks for your help so far.
I did what you said and because all of the site had a 404 as its url all my pages have disappeared from the serp. Will this rectify itself?

 

[Marc van Leeuwen]

Marc van Leeuwen

Your mobile version is indexed and I don't see any problems with it.
If possible, you should use a responsive template for your site so that you don't need a mobile version with separated URL with your domain name.

 

[hbailey]

Thanks we know we need a responsive site but its not a possibility at the moment.

The site has over 2000 pages and only 70 indexed and it only shows the urls to be 404 and if i remove the 404 from the index i loose all the pages in the serp and as only 70 have been correctly indexed I have no listings in the serp. Im totally baffled as what to do now!

 

[SEOPub]

If all the URLs are showing up as a 404, there is something wrong with the site and the way it was designed.

I would give it a little time and see if Google figures it out. If not, I would consider just getting rid of the mobile version. It is not doing you any good anyhow at that point.