Could this be a penalty, or is it something else ?

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Zoco1

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I have a 1 year old site with 220 posts (all well written and between 800-1800 words)

Most of the posts are not even indexed (70% of them) by google even after 1 year. The site is not indexed at all in Bing.

I opened bing webmaster tools, i verified the site, submitted the sitemap. I immediately got an error saying that bing cannot index the site but that the site and domain were discovered in january of 2020.

This is strange as I bought the domain (which i didn't check) in december of 2021 which is almost 2 years later. After some search I found out that the domain was bought and dropped 4 times since 2007

Could it be that the domain has some penalty and search engines won't index it ? Could changing the domain fix the issue ? The idea is that search engines will pick up the new domain and content in a few months.

Also, could there be some issue with indexing because the domain actually an addon domain ?

I would appreciate any help. Thanks.
 
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Bing does not like previously used domains.
You can contact a support and ask to fix it.
 
How about google, as I mentioned most of the articles are not indexed. I even tried rewriting a few of them, changing the url, but nothing happens.... :(
 
Zoco1 said:
the domain was bought and dropped 4 times since 2007
Click to expand...
This might be the crucial info about this non-indexing issue. Not sure if there are enough evidences to prove it.

Have you tried submitting a bunch of URLs manually in GSC and wait and check in few days if they are indexed or not?
 
sageshark said:
This might be the crucial info about this non-indexing issue. Not sure if there are enough evidences to prove it.

Have you tried submitting a bunch of URLs manually in GSC and wait and check in few days if they are indexed or not?
Click to expand...
Yes, i tried with about 30 urls. They got indexed in a few days and then gradually got deindexed again in a couple/few weeks
 
Maybe you should try checking the site history on archive.org to see if it has been spammed.

Also do a technical SEO audit to see if there are issues that are preventing the site from getting indexed. Also what errors is Bing webmaster tool showing you? You may try fixing the errors and see if it help resolve the problem.

Hope that helps.
 
Rufai said:
Maybe you should try checking the site history on archive.org to see if it has been spammed.

Also do a technical SEO audit to see if there are issues that are preventing the site from getting indexed. Also what errors is Bing webmaster tool showing you? You may try fixing the errors and see if it help resolve the problem.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Actually I did that too. Archive.org doesn't return records. I also did run screaming frog and it only returned minor errors such as long metadescriptions and titles etc.

That's why I want to try and change the domain and see what happens.
One thing i am not sure about is the fact that the site is on an addon domain. That should not cause issues I suppose ?
 
Zoco1 said:
One thing i am not sure about is the fact that the site is on an addon domain. That should not cause issues I suppose ?
Click to expand...
That's not an issue. I think the best solution will be to change domain.
 
If you clearly the history of back links that not relevant and tried adding relevant articles still getting indexing issues definitely there is an issue with the domain.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate the answers.
 
Zoco1 said:
I have a 1 year old site with 220 posts (all well written and between 800-1800 words)

Most of the posts are not even indexed (70% of them) by google even after 1 year. The site is not indexed at all in Bing.

I opened bing webmaster tools, i verified the site, submitted the sitemap. I immediately got an error saying that bing cannot index the site but that the site and domain were discovered in january of 2020.

This is strange as I bought the domain (which i didn't check) in december of 2021 which is almost 2 years later. After some search I found out that the domain was bought and dropped 4 times since 2007

Could it be that the domain has some penalty and search engines won't index it ? Could changing the domain fix the issue ? The idea is that search engines will pick up the new domain and content in a few months.

Also, could there be some issue with indexing because the domain actually an addon domain ?

I would appreciate any help. Thanks.
Click to expand...
1. 220 posts in a year. Did you post them all at once? If the quality isn't very good, Google might just consider it spam and never bother to rank (unless you update/add more content frequently)

2. Have you done any kind of off-page? (Blog comments, guest posts, niche edits, web 2.0s). Even some free/cheap links can push you over the edge and get Google to notice the site (not PBNs though)

3. You said the site is built on an add-on domain. Is it a free add-on domain like xyz.weebly.com?
 
this also happen to me to. my website is nearing 2 years old and the visit is disappointing.
 
If your website's articles are bland or contain affiliate links, Google or Bing would immediately penalize your website.
 
Seopreneur01 said:
1. 220 posts in a year. Did you post them all at once? If the quality isn't very good, Google might just consider it spam and never bother to rank (unless you update/add more content frequently)

2. Have you done any kind of off-page? (Blog comments, guest posts, niche edits, web 2.0s). Even some free/cheap links can push you over the edge and get Google to notice the site (not PBNs though)

3. You said the site is built on an add-on domain. Is it a free add-on domain like xyz.weebly.com?
Click to expand...
1. No, not all at once. They are posted over the 12 month period. Around 20 per month.
2. No off page till now. Only social media posts on the site's pages.
3. No, not a free domain. I have a large website and this is an addon that uses the same hosting.
The site was approved for adsense after about 3-4 months so i put some adsense ads on it. However I've taken them down now.
 
sapphirestar said:
If your website's articles are bland or contain affiliate links, Google or Bing would immediately penalize your website.
Click to expand...
I already said in the OP. 90% are well written over 1000 words. I have a number of them between 600-900 words but they are a small number.
 
About the Google issue.
First, check if your domain has a penalty on Google by searching:
domain com
domain.com
With . and without .

The first step should be okay if your domain is top 1 in all two searches.

If your domain is ranked 1 by searching domain.com but not ranked 1 by searching domain com, this can be possible your domain is still in the sandbox (sandbox can take one month up to a few years)

Second check, this works only if you have sitemap_index.xml added to Google Webmasters Tools.
If sitemap_index.xml shows Discovered Pages 0, then your domain is penalized by Google.
If sitemap_index.xml shows the number of other sitemaps example, +1, click on sitemap_index.xml, and if it is blank, then after my own experience, your domain is on the sandbox.
 
zocx said:
About the Google issue.
First, check if your domain has a penalty on Google by searching:
domain com
domain.com
With . and without .

The first step should be okay if your domain is top 1 in all two searches.

If your domain is ranked 1 by searching domain.com but not ranked 1 by searching domain com, this can be possible your domain is still in the sandbox (sandbox can take one month up to a few years)

Second check, this works only if you have sitemap_index.xml added to Google Webmasters Tools.
If sitemap_index.xml shows Discovered Pages 0, then your domain is penalized by Google.
If sitemap_index.xml shows the number of other sitemaps example, +1, click on sitemap_index.xml, and if it is blank, then after my own experience, your domain is on the sandbox.
Click to expand...
Domain.com is top of the search results.
Domain com is nowhere to be found

sitemap_index.xml (from yoast seo) shows discovered pages 0, however post_sitemap.xml shows 200+ posts in the Google WMT
 
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