TOPIC:

I am assisting with the administration of two club's web presence.
We are using the ToastMastersClubs.org websites
warehouse.toastmastersclubs.org/ & windmasters.toastmastersclubs.org/

The Windmaster site is not showing up in a Google Search unless you select the "Some Sites Were Omitted" option. Upon further review, it is likely because the GoogleBot is not being allowed access to crawl the Java Script directory. This is a Major Issuel. This must be changed on a system wide level. See the attached screenshots.






See Google's explanation
googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014...eb-pages-better.html

I will defer to Brian on this since he manages that.

When I Google Windmasters Toastmasters, I see it with no problems. I tested in Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Opera

It is listed second in Chrome, Opera and IE, while in Mozilla, the Meeting Information\Directions page is listed first with the Calendar Page listed second.

Google indexed pages
site:windmasters.toastmastersclubs.org
site:warehouse.toastmastersclubs.org

Related links
info:windmasters.toastmastersclubs.org
info:warehouse.toastmastersclubs.org

Thanks Rodger and Brad for your prompt replies

Yes, Google shows that some pages have been indexed - I submitted the pages to Google, but that does indicate what has been indexed, or whether there was any real content indexed.

Googling "Windmaster" will of course bring up the Windmaster page, high in the rankings - as it is part of the domain name, which is big points for Google's ranking algorithm.

But if we try the real world search - Alameda Toastmasters - we get a very different result. The Windmaster's site does not show at all in the results. If you keep forwarding through all the pages, you eventually come to the last page of search results, where Google says that they have omitted some search results. If you click to show the omitted results, voila, there is the Windmaster page.

If you research the possible causes of being omitted from search results, the problem highlighted in my original post comes to light.

So, my question is this. Why, if Google Tools says there is a significant problem in indexing ALL the toastmasterclub pages - and the problem is well documented and laid out - and the fix is about 10 seconds of editing a robot.txt file - then why wouldn't we want to resolve the issue?

Brian,

Try a twist on the key words. Try putting Alameda Toastmasters or Toastmasters Alameda without a commas separating that combination of key words.

Also, add some custom pages, with the same key words. The more pages with the key words, the better the hit possibility.

Hi Rodger,

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been involved in basic web design since back in the day when Al Gore invented the internet. I have a decent understanding of SEO.

But SEO is of no value if they place us in the Omitted Listings category. That is what Google has done.

Perhaps it is because of the massive changes that Google made to give ranking to sites that are mobile compliant, or perhaps it is due to a change that was made on the ToastHost end. But in the end, the result is the same.

I have a site - Warehouse Toastmasters - that had zero ranking sometime over a year ago. Back then, I was able to quickly bring it up to #1 in the rankings when you search on Oakland Toastmasters, or many other iterations.

I worked on the relatively new Windmaster Toastmasters site and it should easily be in the first two pages of result. Really, it should be on the first page if you Google - Alameda Toastmasters - but it doesn't show up.

This is not only a FreeToastHost problem. I am the member of Will Rogers Toastmasters #645 and we have a wordpress website. We were always #1 in a search in Tulsa OK. 3 months ago we suddenly vanished from the earth and could not be found anymore. The person who did the research basically said in layman's terms that google search spiders did not recognize us anymore because permission was not granted to the spider to enter and look.

bgeasa wrote:

I worked on the relatively new Windmaster Toastmasters site and it should easily be in the first two pages of result. Really, it should be on the first page if you Google - Alameda Toastmasters - but it doesn't show up.

Put Alameda in your Description.

Steve, Please...
Alameda IS in the description.

Helping members improve their public speaking and leadership skills. We meet every Tuesday from Noon to 1:00pm in Alameda.

And if Google were able to properly crawl the site, then the description would not be a limiting factor anyway. Alameda is in the top level heading, the second level heading, and throughout the web pages.

None of the suggestions so far resolve the issue of the Errors that Google reports.

And none of them address the fact that the site ends up in Omitted Results even though it is decently written, does not copy another site, and is not spam.

Brian,

My first thought was that there were so many clubs in Alameda that the keywords were in heavy competition with other clubs, but I see that Oakland has more clubs within 25 miles than Alameda. What did you do to get Warehouse at the top of the list?

Ok, I thought you were talking about Warehouse TM

However, your argument really does not much hold water when you consider all the FTH websites that index just fine. Yet, because of one new FTH website that is not indexing the way you think it should, we should jump through hoops to change the system to your specifications.

Hey Steve,

Sorry for letting my frustration shine through. My arguments do hold water. If the site was just saddled with low search engine rankings, that would be one thing. But the site is ending up in the Omitted Results. Let me shed some light on my process...

• I was asked by Windmasters to assist in getting their site into the rankings, as it did not show up anywhere, and they had heard of my success with Warehouse Toasmasters
• We went through most all of the things that one should do to rank high in the search engines, including all of what has been suggested here. I won't go into detail of all those things right now.
• I added the Windmaster's site to my Google Webmaster Tools Console (Now called Google Search Tools) and submitted the pages for crawling. I did the same with my Bing/Yahoo Webmaster Tools. Everyone administering a website should become familiar with these tools if they aren't already.
• We waited for a couple of weeks to let things settle in. The new site showed up under some search criteria (Site Name), but was nowhere to be found under the critical search criteria - Alameda Toastmasters (City Name). One of the members actually went through the 17 pages of results and clicked on the Omitted Results link at the bottom. Voila, there was the missing Search Engine Listing. But why was it omitted? Google started omitting pages when Spammers figured out how to create thousands of meaningless pages to flood the search engines.
• A review of possible culprits shortlisted Content Blocked From The Crawler. This led me to look further into my Google Search Tools - and there was the glaring error. Think about it. The biggest search engine just told us that they could not index our pages properly. That all they see is the basic header info and a statement to enable Java Script - if we have a lot of these pages out there, they look like spam to the search engine. Additionally, Google explicitly listed the inability to completely crawl a site as reason for omitting the site from the results.
• But why do some sites not have an issue. To understand this, we would have to know a few things. Was the Robot.txt file changed anytime in the past year or so? (perhaps it was changed to reduce the stress on the servers from search engine crawlers) - Is our site compliant with Google's ever changing algorithms? (the tools tell us that we are not) - What are the ages of the individual Toastmaster sites. (Sites that have been around a long time will have been in the search engine indexes using Googles older algorithm, and are more likely to have plenty of backlinks from other websites.)
• The Google Search Tools tell me we have an issue with not just one site, but all of our sites. I would love someone to tell my why I am wrong. Someone to tell me why we should ignore the results of the tools created by Google, the world largest search engine. I am not asking for anything to be changed to "my specification" or jump through hoops - certainly if it is not for the good of all involved. I have about 30 years experience as an IT professional. I do my research and try not to jump to conclusions. I don't think that I am crying wolf...

- - Worth A Quick Read - -
Here is the link from Google explaining the situation affecting all of us:
support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6153277

All the public email addresses in your windmasters home page are an issue. My SEO tools confirm this. The warehouse website does not have public email addresses on its home page. It is a key difference, and my SEO tools like the warehouse home page better than the windmasters home page.

The lack of alt text on your home page images should be addressed.

You should create/submit a site map,

We have over 10,000 clubs using the same system running the same code on the same server. If we were having a system wide issue as you seem to indicate, we would be having a lot more people complaining than just you.

Lastly, while we have periodically updated our robots.txt file periodically to stay ahead of badly behaved bots that drag down system performance, robots.txt indicates that we are not currently blocking the js or css folders.

Cool. It looks like someone agreed that it was a system wide issue. The Robots.txt has been revised. I will have Google re-crawl the site and see if it resolves the issue.

The updated Robots.txt entry for Google:


How it now renders for the GoogleBot (note that the images directory is still blocked):

SteveTheTechie wrote:

All the public email addresses in your windmasters home page are an issue.

Steve,

Thanks for pointing this out. As a practice, I never put an email address on a webpage - that is why formmail was created. I volunteered to assist getting their site into Google hopefully get a decent ranking. I was not aware that email addresses were a big hit in the algorithm. So we definitely need to explore other options for them.

The reason they felt the need to put the email addresses there is because the meetings are held in a secured building. Any guest will need to contact them in advance to arrange to get proper security authorization (vs Warehouse TM, where we never know who might pop in).

So my question, as a sub-topic - perhaps better as a new topic: Can we link to some contact form within the text of our Home Page?
Something like: "Visit Us - But Please Contact Us In Advance By Clicking HERE"

Thanks
Brian

Per the notes on the Contact Us Form tab of Email and Contact Forms module:

NOTE: To link directly to your "Contact Us" form, use http://brian.toastmastersclubs.org?contactus

I recommend just configuring the Contact Us Form as needed.