LowFruits Case Study Site, Month 5: Indexing Solved?

Traffic to the case study website kept increasing in February (the fifth month of this experiment). During the last 30 days, I’ve seen:

• 436 clicks (80% increase compared to January)
• 15.5k SERP impressions (101% increase)
• Average CTR: 2.8%
• Average SERP position: 14.2

Google Discover also picked up the website. And even though Google Discover traffic isn’t all that reliable, it’s a good sign when a five-month-old website shows up there.

Last month, we were solving indexing issues common with new websites. And it seems my strategies worked!

New Website Indexing Problem Solved!

Last month, Google only indexed 15 posts. 

The rest were stuck at “Discovered – currently not indexed” and “Crawled – currently not indexed” in Google Search Console’s “Coverage” tab.

So I rolled up my sleeves and used three tactics:

• Inspecting URLs and requesting indexing in Google Search Console;
• Creating a “Glossary” page with term definitions and internal links to posts;
• Getting the website out there and building high-quality links (some dofollow, others nofollow)

My strategy worked well for the case study site. As of March 8, Google had indexed 48 posts (compared to 15 posts on February 8).

Is this just case study luck?

Let’s check!

LowFruits Case Study Site, Month 4: How to Solve Indexing Issues on a New Website

Verifying Results

I tried the first tactic on the rest of my sites, in various niches and of varying ages, and it yielded results.

B2B Website

This is a website in a narrow niche with a small number of high-value blog posts. 

Did it work? Yes! From February 02 to March 08, I went from around 30 to 45 indexed posts.

B2C Website

Did it work? Yes! In February, I had fewer than 40 posts indexed. After applying the first tactic, I now have 59 indexed posts.

Third Time’s the Charm

Finally, I tried the tactic on a B2C site that’s bringing in hundreds of thousands of visitors per month, with a lot of posts and even more intentionally non-indexed category, tag, and feed pages.

Did it work? Yes! From barely over 500 indexed posts in February, I now have 637 indexed posts. 

The Solution: Inspect URLs and Request Indexing

I’m having a lot of success indexing my posts with the Google Search Console’s Inspect URL tool, no matter the age, niche, authority, and amount of content on my websites.

Here’s what’s been working for me, step-by-step:

• Inspect the URL
• If the URL is not on Google, click “Test Live URL”
• When the test is done—and as long as the page has no issues—request indexing

Within 24-48 hours, if I inspect the same URLs, they are on Google. Has Google finally fixed manual indexing via Google Search Console?

However, they stay as “Excluded” in the “Coverage” report longer because that report doesn’t update as often.

If you’re having trouble getting your sites indexed and you’re reluctant to try Google’s Instant Indexing API (which Google says is intended only for live streams and job ads for the moment), try the method above and let me know if it worked for you.

LowFruits Tip of the Month

LowFruits has powerful built-in filters that help you discover the best low-hanging fruit in your niche. And yet, every niche, every website, and every website owner are different. As you explore keywords, you may find yourself filtering out the same keywords in every report.

Don’t manually filter out keywords every time you look at a report. Go to “Settings” > “Negative Keywords,” and then add the negative keywords you want as default filters for all your reports. It’s a real time-saver!

Keep in mind that the [country] pre-filter filters out all the countries. So if you’re doing a country-specific search like “how to * in France,” the filter will delete all keywords. In that case, just delete [country].

Next Month: Building Authority (and Backlinks)

Stay tuned because next month I’ll tell you the niche! In month 9, I will also reveal the website itself. It’s hard to believe how fast five months have gone by. It seems like yesterday that I registered the domain and set up the hosting for this project.

As for the website, my plan is to continue building links with a mix of HARO outreach and guest posting by Matt Diggity’s Authority Builders (personally, I think their link building services offer great value for the money).

Building topical relevance and domain authority are two important goals for the year. I want this site to be harder and harder to compete with as time goes on, and two of the best ways to achieve that are through great content and strong links.

Metrics Over Time

Content

After seeing early signs of growth, I published 22 new posts in February, bringing the total number of posts published on the site to 57.

I’ve set a minimum of 6 posts per month for this website, and I don’t necessarily intend to post more and more each month. My time and money are focused on another project in March, so I’ll likely post less.

Rankings

Date Checked	March 10, 2022
Avg. Position (Google, USA, Mobile)	14.60
Avg. Position (Google, USA, Desktop)	14.73
Positions in Top 3 on SERPs	13 (+8 Month-over-Month)
Positions in 4-10 on SERPs	16 (+13 Change Month-over-Month)
Positions in 11-100 on SERPs	18 (+9 Month-over-Month)

Did you notice the sting? That’s what I wanted to see, now that the indexing is going in the right direction.

Traffic

Time Period	February 1, 2022 – February 28, 2022
Monthly Pageviews	1.8k
Avg. Engagement Time	1m 01s
Engaged Sessions / User	0.63
Pageviews / Published Post (PPP)	31.57

I’ve finally excluded all of my team’s visits in Google Tag Manager. So what you’re seeing is 100% organic traffic from Google Search, Google Discover, and Bing.

On February 20, there was a jump in the number of visitors. We got significantly more visits to the home page and the paginated archives. 

I suspect that a competitor came across the website via the SERPs and became “curious.”

If that truly is the case, the race is on! 🙂

And since the website was picked up for Google Discover, it drove some traffic my way:

Earnings

Time Period	February 1, 2022 – February 28, 2022
Total Revenue Since Start of Site	$0
Total Revenue YTD (2021)	$0
Monthly Revenue	$0 Of which $0 from display adsOf which $0 from affiliate commissions
Revenue / Published Post (RPP)	$0

Who I Am

Hey!

My name’s Dim.

Thanks for reading (or skimming) this far.

I started my first site in 2007 after I stumbled upon a blog about making money online. I’ve been buying, growing, and selling sites ever since.

These days, I own an indie media company and run an email newsletter for online publishers called “Publetise.”

Don’t be a stranger: Subscribe to my newsletter at Publetise.com and get my best strategies and tactics delivered to your inbox once a week.