Google Site Search does not see my /index.html page

[Christo14]

A few months ago a rebuilt my web site using Muse Responsive features.

Prior to this it was an Adaptive Muse site. If people searched for my business name my web site always came up #1 on Google search, and did so since it's launch. There are quite a few operations globally that have the same or very similar business name.

After the responsive rebuild I undertook a lot of SEO best practices and have continued to do so in order not to lose my Google search rank.

I won't list all the SEO practices I undertake as the list is very long, but feel free to suggest or ask anything with this regard.

The problem is now that, no matter what I do, I cannot find my home page (...index.html) anywhere in Google, or Bing for that matter. The rest of the pages have fallen back to page 3  search results or worse and Google is still Indexing the old .../phone/... pages, even though I have done redirects for every necessary page though my CPanel console, and performed every SEO action that Google recommends.

When I do a Google Site Search to see how it has indexed my web site, it shoes no .../index.html file, no matter what I do.

I was concerned that something I did in the rebuild may have caused this, so I rebuilt the site from scratch again, checking and refining everything. I went through every SEO best practice again, and still no luck.

After 6 weeks I have exhausted my knowledge, and no further research has revealed anything of help.

This is nothing to do with the Muse 2017.1 release - I am still using Muse 2017.0.

Seeking any advice on this issue.

[Preran]

Just so that it helps other contributors on the forum, can you provide us with a link to your website? Also, what are the keywords one should be using to test your site on a search engine. Any information that you can help provide for us to test your site would be useful.

Thanks,

Preran

[Christo14 · Accepted solution]

Hi Preran, thanks for your reply.

2 days since the rebuild and SEO updates and Google now sees my home page and its back to #1 when people search for my site by business name.

Don't feel the need publish the site here as I have resolved the issue, etc. but I would like to submit the issue as a possible bug, or workflow to avoid. Your feedback is most welcome.

I am suspicious that what caused the problem was duplicating the index.html page (home page in Design plan). I was experimenting with different home page layouts and simply duplicated the home page a few times.

The page I chose to use was not the 'original' home page in the Plan view. I deleted the other Home pages and retitled the chosen layout as Home - and made sure the page was titled as index.html in the Page Properties option.

[Preran]

Great to hear that your issue is now sorted. Feel free to file a bug using this link Adobe Muse CC: Feature Ideas

You can include a link to this forum post for reference.

Thanks,

Preran

[kcbranding]

Hello!

Can you give me a bit of info on this respect? I have a website I made for a client and it won't show up in Google. I re indexed the site yesterday and is not showing even when typing the site name on the google search bar. Any suggestions? Thank you!

KC

[Christo14]

Hi nikita26,

First do a Google site search to see what pages of your website Google has indexed, the process is very simple:

In the google.com search bar type the following:

site:www.enteryourdomain.com

Google will display for you all the pages of your website that it has indexed.

Google will index your website faster if you let it know you have recently uploaded a new website.

To tell Google about your website you need to use Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools).

You may or may not have done the following, but these are necessary to get Google to find and crawl your website:

1. Tell Google about your new website with Search Console, instructions below:
   Get your website on Search Console - Search Console Help
2. Add Google Analytics tags to your website:
   Google Analytics Solutions - Marketing Analytics & Measurement
3. Test your site using both tools above.

The process of Indexing a new website in Google can take up to 48 hours or more, if you have done first two steps above. If you do not do those steps Google can take weeks or months before your website becomes visible in Google, if it ever at all.

You can cross check your website's Index status by using Bing. Bing will usually index a new website faster than Google, even if you don't tell Bing about your new website. But if your website does show up in Bing it does not necessarily mean your website will show up in Google. Google makes you really work for search results.

Once you have tried these steps please let us know how it worked out.

If you have no success we can try a few other steps to determine where the problem night be.

Regards,

CY