Betting tips pages not getting indexed

[Rostick]

Hey guys. I recently launched betdistrict, a betting tips website. At the moment it`s functional but there`s still a little work to be done and content to be inserted.

I don`t know if anyone can help me here, but I decided to ask the question anyway.

My problem is that my betting tips are not being indexed by google, even if I submit a sitemap. I saw in webmaster tools that google can see (crawl) them, but refuses to index them. Site is online for about a month and all my other pages got indexed / are getting indexed almost immediately.

Site is built in wordpress and the picks are outputed from my own created database, outside of the wordpress database. I know I`m doing something wrong since wordpress posts get indexed immediately and my own-created pick format is not getting indexed at all.

I am using an intermediate page /betting-tips/ that generates individual pages for every pick. You can see the URL format: http://www.betdistrict.com/betting-tips/?id=166 (i know it needs work, but I don`t think url format is the reason for the problem)

You can see the tips on the main page, they link nicely to the actual tip page.

The problem is really strange to me and I don`t even know if I managed to explain it well enough. I guess you should take a look on the site to understand better what I`m talking about.

If anybody has some ideas, I will be forever in debt. This time I`m totally clueless and I really don`t have the budget to conact specialists, since I`m in rehabilitation after a bad knee injury tat got me basically broke .

Thanks guys!

[universal4]

My first though would be a code error that the spider can not get past.

Running the site through the validator at http://validator.w3.org/ shows 173 errors. I see that some of the errors are just affiliate links etc that would not cause this, but it wouldn't hurt to dig through the list.

Rick
Universal4

[Rostick]

Yeah, code errors is probably it, but the errors in the validator are strictly affiliate codes, some alt tags missing and some <br> lines inserted where they theoretically shouldn`t be.

Anyway, thank you very much for the input.

[universal4]

Well it is likely the template you are using, unless it is a plugin.

Spider simulators see content on the page so I am not sure where to look next for the errors.

If you have a lot of plugins, you could try disabling them and see if that changes things, if so re-enable them one at a time.

Rick
Universal4

[Rostick]

I tried to do things 'professionlaly'. Plugins are surely not the cause, I only have akismet, all-in-one seo and a minify. The theme is paid for, i really hope this is not the reason, otherwise i might have to redo things from scratch.

[Rostick]

I was thinking maybe I should have integrated my tips database intro the wordpress database, but upon further study I don`t think that can be the problem

[baldidiot]

If you so a 'site:www.betdistrict.com/betting-tips/?id=166' search in google it brings up 'www.betdistrict.com/betting-tips/' which could imply that google is ignoring your 'id' parameter.

Have a look in webmaster tools at the following settings: 'Configuration > URL Parameters' and see what it says for the ID param. You might need to edit the parameter to tell google to index it.

I've had this problem a few times, including the reverse (where it was including a bunch of parameters that I didn't want it to) and have found that the big G doesn't always listen to your request, but it's worth a go.

Might be worth creating a different URL structure if possible, both to get around this problem and also for the users (yoursite.com/this-awesome-thing-you-want tends to have a higher CTR than yoursite.com/?p=123). Plus updating in GWT only tells google, not the other SE's, which might also be doing something similar.

[Rostick]

Thanks baldidot. Yes, I noticed the betting tips thing. I allready checked url parameters a few days ago, that`s how i found out that google can SEE the pages. I didn`t give it much thought though since I didn`t know exactly what to do and I didn`t think that was the problem ... I`ll look into it more, maybe you are right. The url structure will surely be changed, I tried but Apache / .htacces isn`t my thing. Yet.

[Rostick]

Just wanted to say I took a closer look at what you said (url parameters) and I told google to crawl and index pages with ID parameters. If they listen, it will work. I don`t know who you are, but if this works, i will find you, and I will give you a beer .

[baldidiot]

Ha ha, no worries - hope it works!

[Sergej_AGR]

I dont think its a technical problem. Its just because your website is new, so it takes longer to get the pages indexed. Maybe google crawler visit your website all 1-2 weeks, so it also takes 1-2 weeks to get them indexed. If you launch a new website you cant expect to have new subpages (your tips) indexed within a few hours.

The url posted here is already indexed, because google spiders gpwa obviously many times a day.
https://www.google.com/search?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.betdistrict.com%2Fbettin g-tips%2F%3Fid%3D173&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:defficial&client=firefox-a

The more content you post the more google will spider your website and you will get your tips indexed faster.

I would recommend to twitter your tips, ping them or something like this.

[Rostick]

Hmmm, yes, it`s indexed, that`s weird. I get what you`re saying, but I still don`t agree. My website is new but there allready over 100 picks ... only this one is indexed. Other content is not only indexed, it is indexed exceptionally (given the short period of time), because I worked pretty hard on SEO.

I sent google sitemaps and they indexed everything except the picks.

Even on social media, if I share content through a button on the website, it doesn`t recognize individual pages, it links to /betting-tips/. If I share them manually it works.

All this (and some other things) got me thinking it`s a tehnical problem. Well, actualy I`m absolutely sure that I did something wrong. For example, you can see what kind of title and description that url that you sent has in google. I can`t fix that the way I coded the website. The only question is was what I did so wrong that the picks won`t get indexed?

I don`t want to seem too whiny and pretentious. I know if I want results I have to work harder / pay. I don`t want wonders, I just want the picks to be indexed (poorly indexed, it`s ok), and next year I will redo things.

Oh yea, I am very active on twitter.

Thanks for the input, you even put some time into it, I really appreciate it. Don`t think that I am not grateful just because I don`t agree!

[casinogambino]

I might be able to shed some insight.

I haven't dug into it too deep, but it looks like you have 10 referring domains showing up and it looks like all of them come from the same IP address.

Check out these stats:

Domain Authority: 10
Page Authority (Home page): 20
mozTrust 1.05
mozTank 0.9

It looks like the domain has been around since 2008 and you picked it up in '11. For a domain this old, those stats are low and you should definitely work on getting those metrics up, particularly the mozTrust. It doesn't look like there has been much link building recently - or at least it's not showing up. Either way, you should focus on doing a diversified link portfolio.

First off, make sure you are using unique content on your site. You can definitely get away with 'curating' content, but for a site that is important to you, a highly advise not to play around. You have to think long-term.

Building links in the gambling niche is not particularly easy. There are not as many options, but I would suggest do the following:

Create a decent link wheel with Web 2.0s. Link them to each other, but not reciprocal. Link them one to the next and one to your main site.

Write a high quality article or two and submit to Ezine Articles. Submitting articles to a ton of sites is no good IMO. Ezine Articles is good because they manually check the work to assure quality. It's annoying to wait for a week, but if you write a good article, it will get approved and other sites will re-publish to their sites. You can pick up some good links this way if you do it right. The whole point of article directories is for contributers to get exposure by allowing publishers to post their content on their own blogs and sites. They're supposed to give credit back. If you write a good article you'll get sites posting your article on their site and linking back to you. Just remember that if you want some mileage on your effort, write a good article.

You use WordPress, so what you should do is publish an interesting post, with a catchy title, and use these Google search operators to find Comment Luv blogs:

keyword & “title=”CommentLuv Enabled”"
keyword +”Commentluv Enabled”
keyword +”Enable Commentluv”

When you comment on blogs with this plugin it will give you a link back to your home page and a link to your latest blog post. Use your name (so it gets approved) and write a half way intelligent comment. It will get approved, you'll get some links. If you choose blogs that already get a lot of traffic and engagement, all the more better. You'll get traffic and exposure as well.

The next thing you want to do is join MyBlogGuest and Bloggers. They are both blogger networks where you'll be able to find sites to guest post on. It's nothing at all to get published on someone else's site simply for the fact everyone is looking for content and not every one has the time to write. Put some good ideas together, write some posts - then just post a thread and list all of the titles. You'll get more of a response if you introduce yourself in the forum and sell the crowd.

You can then come up with a news item you can relate to your site. Maybe do some type of promotion. Afterwards, write a press release and find someone on Fiverr to submit it to a bunch of sites. I have someone there I use.

You can also create a video to upload to YouTube and Vimeo. Be sure to use your keywords in the title and description.

If you want to take it one step further, you can use those search operators above to find directories to submit your site to. Put keyword + directory, or keyword + "web directory", etc. Play around with it or search for some examples on Google.

Directory submission is not a bad thing. You just don't want to submit your site to a bunch of low quality general directories. When you find directories that are niche-related you get highly relevant links back to your site - this is a good thing.

Personally, I use Raven Tools / SEOmoz, and a number of other tools, but if you want to check the quality of a site and some other metrics, download SEO Quake. It's a browser extension that will let you check PageRank and a bunch of other stuff. It's good to do this when getting your link on any site, but especially directories as most tend to be low quality. Another good thing to do if a site looks questionable is to use this search operator:

site:thedomain.com

If that search doesn't bring back a bunch of urls from that domain, you have a ****** site on your hands. RUN! You'll see sites that have been banned and OTHER sites will rank on their domain before they do. Sure sign of Google hell and definitely NOT where you want your site.

Hope this helps!

Rob

[IGS]

I tried to do things 'professionlaly'. Plugins are surely not the cause, I only have akismet, all-in-one seo and a minify.

Hi Rostick

I run most of my sites on wp but use more plugins and maybe your new content will be indexed faster if you use: Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress (you can search in the plugins options and add new plugins there.)

And a few more plugins i like to use:

What Would Seth Godin Do

WordPress Related Posts

Pretty Link Lite

Epik GeoIP (paid)

Broken Link Checker

And gl with the site

[Rostick]

First of all I want to state that my problem seems to often be misunderstood. My content is being indexed just great, actually quite fantastic after only 1 month. I worked a lot on SEO, I have super-high quality content, I am pretty skilled after many years of experience in the romanian market (sorry for the bragging), and this is not the issue. The problem is strictly for the picks with the id parameter. They ARE CRAWLED but not indexed. It IS NOT a problem of authority. It is not even strictly a SEO problem, more like a coding problem with effects on SEO.

Rob, I really appreciate you took the time to write that response. Thank you.

Yea, I bought the domain in 2012, but I didn`t have content until 1 month ago when I launched the website. Most of the things you suggested, I did them. I`m working on link building and when the website is 100% finished I will buy advertising.

Just today I was thinking about article promotion. It`s good at the beggining. Thanks for the Enzine suggestion, I didn`t know about it. Will do. I won`t get into comments/blogs, i don`t have time for that, I will advertise in a more 'professional' way.

Again, google indexing my website is not a problem, domain authority is not a problem.

@IGS - sitemap generator for wordpress won`t work, since my betting tips database is external of wordpress (I actually think this might be the problem).

Thanks everyone, i really appreciate you took the time to respond. Hope I didn`t seem rude in this message but I wanted to explain the problem more clearly.

[Rostick]

Submitted to Ezine articles, I liked their 'Modus Operandi', can`t wait to see what kind of results it will bring.

[casinogambino]

Glad to see you have it handled. I'd have to agree with what was said above regarding the link structure. If you can some how switch to post name that might help. Great site by the way. = )

[Rostick]

Thanks. Or was that ironical with the "=)"? Honestly, I am really happy with the website, especially after the latest adjustments that I am doing now to the picks and reviews pages.

Yea, I know what has to be done with the link structure, two lousy mod_rewrite coding lines in .htacces, but somehow I am too stupid to understand that coding language. I`ll have to do it anyway, even if it fixes the problem or not.

Well, I guess the problem is tricky. I was hoping I was missing something obvious but it seems it`s not the case. My best guess remains that the problem lies in the betting tips database being external from the wordpress database. I am honestly scared to try to move it internal, because than I will have to edit all the database connections - hard and dangerous work. Well, not so dangerous with backup, but I`m not some coding genius and any mistake will glue me to the monitor for many hours or even days and probably make the website useless for the same amount of time.

It`s not just google, feedburner also doesn`t recognize the pick pages as individual pages, and there are small problems with other services. Clearly something`s wrong.

I`m less than 2 weeks away from finishing the website completly, and I will seek professional help, it has to be done.

Thanks everyone for the help, even though the problem was not fixed (though I`m still hoping that url parameters in google do some magic), I still learned some really useful things.

[casinogambino]

That was a genuine compliment.

If I knew a bit more about coding I could offer assistance, but I am afraid I have learning to do as well. Building a site is no easy feat. You're doing good work. How long have you been in an affiliate? I'm new to the game.

[Rostick]

thanks. i have been an affiliate for 7 years, but it was just a hobby at first. for 6 years i was satisfied writing some tips and getting some change as a reward. only now I am taking things to the "next level", I hope I will succeed. But that 7 years, together with my old html knowlege, gave me some basis to learn coding from.

The industry is pretty tough and it only got tougher recently with the regulations and new affiliate comission structure.