17 Reasons Why Your Page is Not Ranking & How to Fix Them
Are you struggling to rank on Google after investing plenty of time and effort? It can be pretty daunting. But don’t give up just yet.
Let’s look at the bright side. Sometimes, figuring out where to tap to get your content positioned in SERPs may take time. But it is definitely possible.
If you can find out what is hindering your SEO progress and eliminate it, you can get your web page shooting up to a top position on Google.
I’ll give you 17 potential reasons why Google isn’t showing your page and also tell you how you can fix them.
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Google Can’t Access Your Page
The prerequisite before showing up on Google is to make your pages accessible to the search engine bots. Think of this – when Google bots try to visit your pages and are greeted by 4xx or 5xx error messages or your website uses a noindex tag that literally says to Google “you guys are not welcomed”, let alone ranking, getting indexed becomes almost impossible.
Here is how any search engine works, including Google – after discovering your pages, it crawls the content and adds it to the database, also known as the Index. After this process, Google will show your content in SERPs for relevant searches. Read our in-depth article about crawling, indexing, and ranking to learn more about crawling.
So, if your page isn’t ranking on Google, it may be because the search engine can’t access your page to read your content.
But why does that happen?
Sometimes, webmasters may use techniques like adding a noindex tag in robots.txt and creating paywalled content to prevent the search engine from crawling certain pages on their site. There could even be a technical issue in the server or the .htaccess file that may be triggering a server error. In such cases, Google won’t show those pages in search results.
How to Fix it?
Check if there are potential crawling blocks stopping Google from accessing the pages that you want Google to rank. You can do that by checking the search console. It will display any and all crawling and indexing related issues.
Leverage the robots.txt report on Google Search Console to manage how the search engine interacts with your website.
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Your Page Has Rendering Issues
When Google spiders crawl a page, they render it to retrieve the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript codes to read the content. If your pages heavily relies on JavaScript to display the content and if it fails to render or if you have blocked it from rendering using robots.txt when Google crawls, this can cause indexing and ranking issues.
Additionally, if the website is too slow to load, there are chances of incomplete crawling which will result in the content being indexed properly.
Google can’t render your page, it may not be able to understand your content. This may affect your page rankings considerably.
How to Fix?
You can test how Google renders your page using the Rich Results Test or the URL Inspection Tool in the Search Console.
What’s more important is that all the important content assets should load in mobile devices because, Googlebots have are based on mobile first indexing, which means your rankings in both mobile and desktop search depends on how it renders in a smartphone.
Once you have fixed the lurking issues, you can submit the page URL to Google from the Search Console.
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Your Page Isn’t Index-Worthy
Sometimes, Google may crawl your page but still doesn’t add it to its index. This may be because the search engine assumes that your page is not worth indexing.
Don’t fret. I’ll tell you how you can fix the issue quickly.
How to Fix?
Locate the URL Inspection Tool on Google Search Console. Enter the specific page URL and the tool will let you know if the page is indexed.
If the page isn’t indexed, the Search Console will show you reasons why your page is unindexed. Once you fix those bugs, you can submit the URL from the Search Console and request Google to index it.
However, if you don’t find any information about the reason, the chances are your content is not up to the mark. This can happen if the content has been scrapped from another website, if it adds no value to the users or when it’s created using ai without any value additions.
In such cases, the only fix is to rewrite the content and make them more informative and usefu to the users.
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Your Website is Penalized
Google hates it when webmasters violate its guidelines, which the search engine giant calls Google Search Essentials.
This often happens when webmasters resort to shady black hat SEO practices, including building link farms, Private Blog Networks featuring low-quality content (PBNs), cloaking, sneaky redirects, keyword stuffing and other unfair tactics to manipulate Google’s algorithms for higher rankings.
If you do such things Google isn’t fond of, your page will face problems ranking higher or doesn’t rank at all.
If you didn’t do it intentionally or want to nullify the damage done, here’s what you need to do.
How to Fix?
Go to the Manual Actions tab on Google Search Console and look for potential issues on your page.
Check out the tips to fix Google penalties and manual actions to recover your website and boost its SERP standings.
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Your Website is Affected by Algorithm Changes
If a page that was once ranking well is now seeing a dip, it is probably because of Google’s algorithm updates.
While Google is frequently rolling out algorithm updates to bring better results for users, it is often the bigger updates, like a core update, that trigger significant ranking shifts than the smaller ones.
If you are facing a ranking drop in the wake of an algorithm update, you should look for impact reports regarding other websites that are affected by the update.
How to Fix?
Analyzing your website metrics and examining these reports simultaneously will help you identify patterns and allow you to make informed decisions regarding what you should do to recover your website.
Alternatively, to lift some weight off your shoulders, you can also take the help of a trusted SEO service provider to drive your site back to normalcy.
We at Stan Ventures have hands-on experience recovering websites hit by algorithm updates and can assist you in restoring your top rankings.
Internal links are more important than you think. In fact, search engines like Google use these links to discover and crawl new pages on your website.
That said, if you don’t interlink your new pages to the other relevant pages on your website, they will be orphaned and may end up not being discovered by Google.
Sometimes, even if Google finds a page, it is likely to assume that the page is unimportant as it isn’t linked to other internal pages.
Either way, the chances of such pages going unindexed are pretty high.
How to Fix?
Make sure you interlink your web pages using the right keywords placed naturally in the content. This way, you prompt Google to understand that the pages are relevant and helpful to users.
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Your Page Loading Speed isn’t Up to the Mark
Google counts on user experience signals to rank sites and page loading speed is one of them.
If your page loading speed is low, it may hinder your site from ranking higher for relevant searches.
How to Fix?
To fix this issue, you need to focus on the Core Web Vitals.
Google says, “We highly recommend site owners achieve good Core Web Vitals for success with Search and to ensure a great user experience generally. This, along with other page experience aspects, aligns with what our core ranking systems seek to reward.”
Optimizing your images, reducing redirects and minifying CSS and JavaScript files are some of the best ways to improve your page loading speed.
Want to dig deeper? Check out our detailed blog post.
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You are Competing Against Yourself
Imagine you are running a race. But you are trying to beat yourself down instead of competitors. That’s crazy, right?
That’s what keyword cannibalization looks like.
As multiple pages on your site target the same keyword, Google doesn’t know which page to rank higher and may end up not ranking any of them.
Cannibalization can also occur with identical e-commerce pages featuring similar products with minor differences, including color and size.
When this happens, Google may choose to rank a different version of the page instead of the one you want it to rank.
How to Fix?
Use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console to know if Google is considering the inspected page a duplicate of another page on your website.
If the URL in the “canonical” field is NOT the exact match of the URL you are inspecting, it means that Google is considering another version of the page as the one it should rank.
Now, that’s why the page you want Google to rank is not isn’t ranking.
Use canonical tags to tell Google which one of the similar pages you want it to rank. If Google keeps ignoring canonical tags, you should focus on optimizing the page it is ranking.
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Your Content Format Matters
If your content doesn’t align with the content type your target audiences are looking for, Google may not rank your page higher.
Let’s say you want video content about link building to rank higher. But what if people using the search term “link building” increasingly want to read a blog post?
Google will not rank your page higher even if your content is relevant and helpful because it thinks another content type is more appropriate.
How to Fix?
Whenever you create content to rank higher for specific search terms, make sure you have an eye for the content type of the top-ranking results.
This way, you can streamline your content production in order to improve the probability of ranking higher for the keywords of your choice.
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Your Content Doesn’t Match the Search Intent
If you are missing out on search intent when creating your content, your page may not perform well in search.
Imagine running an ecommerce website. You want to rank your product page for Nike shoes to rank higher, but you target the long-tail search term “how to buy the best Nike shoes”.
Users landing on your page will find your content irrelevant because they are looking for a buyer’s guide to purchase a particular product and not the product itself.
Your visitors will be unsatisfied because your content doesn’t answer their question. That’s the result of a search intent mismatch. So, Google will not rank your page for the keyword you have chosen.
How to Fix it?
If you want to rank for certain keywords, make sure you create content in such a way that it does justice to the search intent of the keyword in question.
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Your Competitors Are Performing Better Than You
Sometimes, if your page isn’t ranking as expected, it may be because other brands in your industry are performing better than you.
How to Fix?
Perform Google Search using the keyword to find out your rivals occupying top positions. Once you have them shortlisted, conduct competitor analysis using a trusted SEO tool to find out the potential gaps between your page and theirs.
Leverage the newly identified link building and content opportunities to be a step ahead of them and rank higher.
As I mentioned earlier, backlinks can pass stronger relevancy signals and demonstrate your credibility to Google. But what if you don’t have enough backlinks pointing to your website?
This lack of powerful backlinks is another reason why Google isn’t rewarding your site with better rankings.
How to Fix?
Watch your competitors’ backlink profiles closely and identify sites that are linking back to them but not to you.
If some other sites have offered backlinks to your competitors, they can link back to your page as well. This means they are relevant to your niche and earning link placements in them is possible with some effort in the right direction.
Try to acquire backlinks from those sites while highlighting that your content will add value to their target audience.
BEWARE: Toxic backlinks from spammy sites can harm your site’s SEO. Choose external sites for link building carefully based on authority and trustworthiness.
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Your Page Requires Stronger E-E-A-T Signals
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness) is an integral part of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines. The framework is a touchstone for content quality. Your site may not get better SERP standings if it doesn’t reflect strong E-E-A-T signals.
If you run a YMYL site that impacts the quality of life for users, robust E-E-A-T signals are a must-have. YMYL sites cover financial stability, health, safety or legal advice and more.
How to Fix?
Some of the best ways to strengthen E-E-A-T signals include publishing in-depth articles with citations, adding author bios that link back to the professional profiles of the writers, Highlighting testimonials, case studies, success stories and much more.
Want to dig deeper? Here’s everything you need to know about E-E-A-T.
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Your Page Requires More SEO Efforts
SEO isn’t a one-time process. The reason your page isn’t ranking may be because it needs more optimization.
How to Fix?
Check if the content is up-to-date. Refresh it wherever necessary, from statistics to current trends. Fill potential content gaps using relevant and helpful information. Make sure the content carries a singular, convincing tone from the beginning to the end.
Leverage appropriate keywords to build new internal and external backlinks that are contextually rich.
In a nutshell, tweak your web page in all possible ways to improve its relevance to user queries so that it appears more frequently in SERPs.
However original your content is, why would Google want to rank you If you are dealing with a topic that many websites have already covered?
I mean you are one among the many but not the one and only. That’s exactly the problem.
How to Fix?
Ponder upon things that set you apart from the other players in your niche. If you can come up with something like that, that’s your unique selling point.
Wound your content around that unique selling point to give your visitors and Google a genuinely compelling reason to prioritize your page over the rest.
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Your Content isn’t Properly Accessible for Users
If you are targeting prospects in a specific location, you should communicate in a language they understand. If not, they might not find your page relevant even if your content is informative. In that case, Google may not rank your page for searches in that location.
Let’s say your website offers English teaching services to students in Japan. Your target audience will find your website more relevant when you feature content in their regional language. That’s how you will gain location-based online visibility.
How to Fix?
Target potential keyword opportunities in the language your target audience is familiar with. Infuse them naturally into the regional content you have created. This will make your content easily accessible to your prospects.
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Your Page is Still Too New
You can’t expect Google to index and rank your page overnight. It may take anywhere from a few days to weeks for Google to discover your page.
How to Fix?
Sometimes, you just have to sit back and wait for Google to crawl your page. If you think it is taking more time, check if you have optimized your content properly and then submit the URL via the Search Console to draw Google’s attention to it.
If your page isn’t ranking on Google, you need to find out what is pulling it back and focus on potential solutions to eliminate it.
Leverage this guide to pinpoint issues faster so that you can set your website on the right track and start magnetizing the right crowd your way.