[Split] Google Search Console And Indexing Issues

[sebo]

hi, ive got the same issue, and i saw that the main page does not have canonical url (don't know why)

On the duplicate canonical, add HB's code below <title> in your overall_header.html file. That bit of code is gold to Googlebot, b/c now your sitemap and your pages will be in sync with one another, both saying the same thing, we don't care what else you think this page is called, it's called this and you, Googlebot, should index it as this!! We've been using that for about four months and we don't end up having to do any more validations. They're getting about 90% of the canonicals correct now, systematically dumping the others. It's still not as fast as a fresh start, but it's getting the job done.

what is that HB code?
in overall_header.html into the title tag i have:

Code: Select all

<title><!-- IF UNREAD_NOTIFICATIONS_COUNT -->({UNREAD_NOTIFICATIONS_COUNT}) <!-- ENDIF --><!-- IF not S_VIEWTOPIC and not S_VIEWFORUM -->{SITENAME} - <!-- ENDIF --><!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} - <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} - <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE}<!-- IF S_VIEWTOPIC or S_VIEWFORUM --> - {SITENAME}<!-- ENDIF --></title>

what do you suggest?
i have like 150-200 indexed pages, and 10000 not indexed

another big problem is
Page with Redirect
lot's of my pages are not indexed beacuse of the redirect from http to https. do you know how to solve it?
i've setted the URL SERVER SETTINGS in PCA:
protocol to https
Forced settings URL server: no

do i have to change them?

[thecoalman]

The canonical URL is the base page so Google will know it's duplicate if the URL to access it is different from the base page. For example on this page it can be accessed through:

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https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=16004347#p16004347

The canonical is:

Code: Select all

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2652025

lot's of my pages are not indexed beacuse of the redirect from http to https. do you know how to solve it?

Make sure it's 301 redirect and it's being redirected to the right corresponding https page. Only the https page will get indexed. Also make sure you are redirecting non www to www or vice versa. Pick one or the other.

[sebo]

Make sure it's 301 redirect and it's being redirected to the right corresponding https page. Only the https page will get indexed. Also make sure you are redirecting non www to www or vice versa. Pick one or the other.

How can i make It sure? In normal browser It works properly. I made It also with .htaccess file

I cannot redirect from non www to www and viceversa...It would create a loop, doesn't It?!?

[thecoalman]

Right click the browser window and slect inspect, switch to the network tab. When you refresh the page it will give list of the requests and the http status code.

I cannot redirect from non www to www and viceversa..

Pick one or the other. There is no benefit one way or the other so just pick whatever Google appears to have picked. If you were doing www.

http://example.com -> https://www.example.com
https://example.com -> https://www.example.com
http://www.example.com -> https://www.example.com

While the www has historical significance technically it's just a subdomain no different than anysubdomain.example.com which means google will treat it as different resource than the non www.

[MortallCsAl3x]

Hellow! Indexing in google has nothing to do with switching from http to https, 90 percent of us use Direct Admin or Cpanel as web hosting, these 2 panels force the switch from http to https, for that you have to contact those who I host your site, and on the indexing side in Google, send the pages to indexing manually!

[ssl]

Hosts offer an SSL certificate, often free. In no case do they force HTTPS redirection, it is up to the webmaster of each forum to install an HTTPS redirection in order to no longer have access to their forum in HTTP
In this regard MortallCsAl3x, your board is always accessible via HTTP, no HTTPS redirection is in place.

[thecoalman]

Google will lower the rankings of your site if it's not over https.

it is up to the webmaster of each forum to install an HTTPS redirection

I believe what he meant is Cpanel has these features built in. There is no manually editing of .htaccess required.

[sebo]

in the inspection tab the code il 200...
the https and the ssl certificate are activated (otherwise i would not have the duplicate problem) in the cpanel correctly
the host told me to add to the .htacces those rules to make work properly the ssl certificate:

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-Proto} !https
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301,NE]

i also cannot understand always in indexing...
google says:
1176 NOT Indexed - duplicate_page_with_proper_canonical_tag. - Page not indexed (in the google wiki it says this one is ok because it redirect to a correct indexed canonical page)
271 Indexed

how can 1176 not indexed pages, redirect to canonical url, when only 271 are indexed? how 1176 topics redirect to 271 pages?

and...In my forum i have: 10045 topics. why only 271 pages are indexed?

[ssl]

For HTTPS redirection, at the top of the .htaccess file find this:

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RewriteEngine on

Just after add this:

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RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

Save and clear cache

[SQLnovice]

sebo, the link was in the quote (see arrow up), but I'll just re-quote HB's code again. Select All his code and paste it into your overall_header.html, in the row after </title>, around row 18.

We are most concerned about that top category "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" with the large number of pages that are seemingly being ignored by Google.

Google is indicating that it found the canonical tag and it's using that as "thee" URL. So Google isn't ignoring these URLs, it's indicating they are duplicates of other URLs.

The phpBB code generates A LOT of URLs that are duplicates. For example, Google will traverse every link on a page including the viewtopic.php?p=XXX for every post, but it's the same content, viewtopic.php?t=YYY. The base phpBB code tells search engines all these URL variants are the same content with the canonical metatag in overall_header.html:

Code: Select all

<!-- IF U_CANONICAL -->
	<link rel="canonical" href="{U_CANONICAL}">
<!-- ENDIF -->

...

[sebo]

thanks

On the duplicate canonical, add HB's code below <title> in your overall_header.html file. That bit of code is gold to Googlebot, b/c now your sitemap and your pages will be in sync with one another, both saying the same thing, we don't care what else you think this page is called, it's called this and you, Googlebot, should index it as this!! We've been using that for about four months and we don't end up having to do any more validations. They're getting about 90% of the canonicals correct now, systematically dumping the others. It's still not as fast as a fresh start, but it's getting the job done.

this post was the one that i didn't understand. (on the other topic) this one i guess is the solution but i didn't understnd whic was the hb's code...
i think i get it, you suggest to add the

Code: Select all

<!-- IF U_CANONICAL -->
	<link rel="canonical" href="{U_CANONICAL}">
<!-- ENDIF -->

below the title tag...

but in phpbb is already under the title tag i have:

Code: Select all

<title><!-- IF UNREAD_NOTIFICATIONS_COUNT -->({UNREAD_NOTIFICATIONS_COUNT}) <!-- ENDIF --><!-- IF not S_VIEWTOPIC and not S_VIEWFORUM -->{SITENAME} - <!-- ENDIF --><!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} - <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} - <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE}<!-- IF S_VIEWTOPIC or S_VIEWFORUM --> - {SITENAME}<!-- ENDIF --></title>

<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_OVERALL --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {SITENAME}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_index') }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_NEWS --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_FEED_NEWS}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_news') }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_FORUMS --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_ALL_FORUMS}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_forums') }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_TOPICS --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_FEED_TOPICS_NEW}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_topics') }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_TOPICS_ACTIVE --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_FEED_TOPICS_ACTIVE}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_topics_active') }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_FORUM and S_FORUM_ID --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_FORUM} - {FORUM_NAME}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_forum', { forum_id : S_FORUM_ID } ) }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- IF S_ENABLE_FEEDS_TOPIC and S_TOPIC_ID --><link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="{L_FEED} - {L_TOPIC} - {TOPIC_TITLE}" href="{{ path('phpbb_feed_topic', { topic_id : S_TOPIC_ID } ) }}"><!-- ENDIF -->
	<!-- EVENT overall_header_feeds -->
<!-- ENDIF -->

<!-- IF U_CANONICAL -->
	<link rel="canonical" href="{U_CANONICAL}">
<!-- ENDIF -->

maybe i'm missing something

[SQLnovice]

No, I think you've got it right. It's now up to Google's 13 y.o. programmers to write better analytic code that doesn't kick out erroneous duplicate canonical feedback, when you're doing exactly what they've asked you to do.

I wish there was a better way that would score a one-to-one relationship between doing what we're asked and them successfully and correctly reading the proper canonical URLs, but as far as I can tell, this is what we're limited to. It's up to Googlebot and many many years of waiting.

If someone knows of a better way, oh-please oh-please, let all of us know what that better way is!