Below are four basic reasons as to why your website may not be appearing in Google’s search results.

Google Can’t Find It

You can’t show up in Google’s results if you have never been found by Google before.

There are two ways that Google finds your site; 1) Site Submit, and 2) Links to your site from other sites crawled by Google. A capable webmaster will know how to submit your site to Google. You can also find more information about submitting your digital assets to Google here -> Pick ME!

The next way would be to build links to your site (backlinks) manually. This is time-consuming and sometimes very difficult task that deserves careful planning and a strategy behind it. A capable webmaster should also know how to go about building quality backlinks. More on backlink building here -> Over Here!

This is a visual representation of a backlink profile via Cognitiveseo.

Google Can’t Read It

Does your site uses Flash and/or does your Robots.txt file allow Google to read the site?

Flash is frequently used to display videos and animations. However, after the 2000s, the usage of Flash on Web sites has declined because search engines have a hard time reading it. Basically, Google only reads numbers and letters. An easy way to see if a Google is reading your content is to try highlighting it with your mouse. If the letters and numbers can not be highlighted, Google probably can’t crawl – or read – that content. Here is an example.

The Robots.txt file is a group of web standards that regulate internet robot behavior and search engine indexing. Google will not and can not read your website if your Robots.txt file is set to disallow it to. Having a capable Webmaster check and/or edit your Robots.txt file is the only solution here.

Google Doesn’t Want To Touch It

Since Google’s job is to serve users the most reliable sites on the internet, Google is sensitive to sites that might have dangerous content, malware, and spam. If you have installed the Google Search Console verification code, then you can see if Google thinks your site contains malware and how Google sees your site.

Google Doesn’t Think It Is Relevant Enough

Google will always try to serve up the most trusted and authoritative sites it can. Highly competitive industries will obviously create very competitive search engine results. Also, general and broad keywords are “competitive” because Google is tasked with serving up the most relevant, trusted, and applicable results for – what could be – and ambiguous search term/keyword. For example, say that you are Audio Visual installation company specializing in Automotive and Boat installs and you are trying to rank in Google for the search term “Car Audio”.

The search term “ “Car Audio” is so broad Google has to try and figure out if the user is looking for:

• The definition of Car Audio
• The history of Car Audio technology
• Recent advancements in Car Audio technology
• Legalities regarding Car Audio systems
• Car Audio Manufacturing Companies
• A local provider of Car Audio Installation services

Now just imagine how many websites across the entire internet could be competing for the same top positions on Google for searches using “Car Audio”. In this case, choosing a more specific targeted search term like “Car Audio installers” would be a term to try and rank well in Google for.

Google has penalized you

Google is constantly making updates and changes to the way their search engines function. As such, there are two reasons to why Google may be intentionally leaving out of SERPS; 1.) Algorithmic potently, and 2.) Manual penalties.

Having an Algorithmic Penalty means Google does not promote your site via the SERPS because it not longer values site’s like yours.

Having a manual penalty means a person actually hit the dump button on your site and you have been completely removed or all by removed from the search engine.

Find out if you have a penalty here -> Right Here!

The post Why You Can’t Find Your Website On Google Search appeared first on Clix.

I recently signed up to test and give feedback on Google’s alpha version of their new Search Queries report, and I was one of a delicate few Webmasters selected to try out the new report. The current Search Queries report will most likely be replaced with the Search Impact report.

When released to the public, the Search Impact report will be located in the Search Traffic section in Google Webmaster Tools. The new report will give Webmasters the ability to breakdown clicks and position metrics by one of these six dimensions: date, popular queries, top pages, leading countries, user device and Google Search property. Additionally, you can filter and compare across these dimensions.

Here are some screenshots of the new Search Impact report in Google Webmaster Tools (not yet released to the public):

By Date Report:

By Popular Queries:

By Top Pages:

By Country:

By User Device:

By Google Search Property:

The post Google Webmaster Tools: Search Impact Reports appeared first on Clix.

The Penguin algorithm deals with the biggest and most influential ranking factor—external links (links pointing to your website).  Penguin gives credit to sites that have natural, helpful, reliable, relevant links, and penalizes sites that have produced deceiving links for the sole purpose of increasing rankings, or links that are simply unnatural.

Should You Be Concerned?

While each Penguin update is powerful, the most noticeable updates still only hit around 3-4% of all search queries.  Thus, unless you’re an avid link spammer–and if you are, then you’ve most likely already been penalized by Penguin 1.0 and 2.0–you probably won’t be affected.

Regardless, review your keyword rankings and organic search traffic, and make annotations on how they have fluctuated over the past few days and upcoming weeks.   Although Google says the Penguin 3.0 update is still “rolling out,”  by now you should have a solid idea as to whether or not your site was hit.  If you saw an abrupt drop in keyword rankings this past weekend, then all signs point to you being a victim of Penguin 3.0.  If you haven’t discovered any noticeable changes, or if your keyword rankings have improved–then you might have revitalized from a preceding Penguin penalty that was keeping you down, or you may have benefited from some of your competitors that were formerly ranking in front of you getting hit by Penguin and dropping in the search results.

Penguin 3.0 Recovery Steps

If you did notice a drop in keyword rankings, or if your organic search traffic is abnormaly lower, you must be proactive and recover from the update.  Remember that there is no fast fix when trying to recover from an algorithm update.  If you put in a significant amount of time and energy, then you can certainly fix the problem.

Step 1: Identify the unnatural, spammy backlinks pointing to your site

If your website was in fact hit by the Penguin update, it’s most likely the result of too many “bad” inbound links (links pointing to your website).  Bad links include but are not limited to:

• Links using spammy (exact-keyword-match) anchor text
• Article directory links
• Paid links (excluding advertising)
• Irrelevant forum links
• Low-quality, irrelevant web directories

You can use backlink analysis tools like Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, cognitiveSEO, Majestic SEO, and Ahrefs (I recommend using Google and Bing’s backlink data, as well as one other data source).

While unnatural, spammy backlinks are the main reason websites get hit by Penguin, on-site spam can also cause a Penguin penalty.  Keyword stuffing, link cloaking, and hidden text can all cause Penguin penalties to arise, so if you haven’t partaken in any manipulative link building, evaluate your website for these potential issues.

Step 2: Remove the Unnatural, Spammy Backlinks

You’ll need to gather whois information (domain contact info) so you can reach out to webmasters and domain registrants to ask them to remove links.  If your inbound link profile consists of tons of keyword-rich anchor text, then I would start by focusing on your most-used anchor text.  However, you’ll want to check all of your backlinks (and I mean every single one).  Just because a backlink isn’t using keyword-rich anchor text doesn’t mean the backlink isn’t spammy.  If the backlink is on a low-quality web directory using branded anchor text, then you’ll still want to try and get it removed.  For links that you cannot get removed, add them to a disavow file and upload to Google’s Disavow Links Tool.  The disavow file tells Google that you no longer want your site to be associated with those backlinks and or domains.

Step 3: Revaluate Your Strategy

If you were engaging in manipulative backlink building, I highly advise you stop now to prevent further damage to your site.  Review Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and go from there.  If you create quality content that users find informative and want to share, then the backlinks will build themselves.

Good luck, folks!

The post Google Penguin 3.0 – First BIG Update to the Link Spam-Fighting Algorithm in Over a Year appeared first on Clix.