5 replies to this topic

[richtestani]

New to this site, and not so new to SEO.

We finished a site for a client, but their site hasn't been indexed by Google yet, which has been live for about 3-4 months.

Search the client by URL returns no results, so her domain name is not being indexed.
The url in question is:
[removed]

We think it may be the lack of content on the home page but certainly sites with less to offer is indexed.
Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thank you!
Rich

[Jill]

There's nothing to index, no content.

Also do you have any links pointing to it?

[richtestani]

Hi Jill,

We are going to add their site to our company page, just haven't yet. I thought it might have something to do with the fact the the home page is photographic (even though there is navigation).
Would suggesting one of the other pages to Google help since the rest of the site has content? The home page was more about setting a feel for the photographer.

Thanks Jill
Rich

[Michael Martinez]

You need to put some indexable text on the page. That will not in any way detract from the value of the photography. Photographers are very hard to optimize for because they don't want to accept that their images MUST share the screen space with prominently placed highly visible text.

If your client is going to be as intransigent as many other photographers I have discussed SEO with (and they almost all seem to be cut from the same cloth, in my experience), then she would probably do better to focus on social media marketing and not worry about search engines.

Search engines can and do index images, but only as a secondary consideration. If there is no text there is no reason to index the site. Some textless pages get through, but those are the exceptions not the rule.

Show the site to your client in Yellowpipe's Lynx browser simulator and tell her, "This is what search engines see -- they need to find text and assess value on the basis of that)."

I see there is a blog on the site. It would be better to make that the root page's content and to get rid of the splash page.

Make sure the blog pings search indexes like ping-o-matic.

[Jill]

"Suggesting sites to Google" is of no help. There has to be links to pages that have content or you will most likely never get indexed.

But even if you do get indexed, how will Google know what the site is all about since it's just photos?

[CeeJ]

Looking at the site with SEO Site Tools, I see that Google has seven pages indexed.
What are you doing to "discover" your indexed pages?

You may also want to add some "case study" stories or other related content to
ensure that Google finds more content on the next crawl.

New to this site, and not so new to SEO.

We finished a site for a client, but their site hasn't been indexed by Google yet, which has been live for about 3-4 months.

Search the client by URL returns no results, so her domain name is not being indexed.
The url in question is:
sarahjanesilvertonphotography.com/

We think it may be the lack of content on the home page but certainly sites with less to offer is indexed.
Any ideas what could be causing this?

Thank you!
Rich