Google can't index site because of "Page with indirect"?

randomanon · 2024-12-16T01:55:05.260Z

Hey all, trying to set up Google Search Console. Submitted my sitemap and it went through but it keeps telling me there’s a “Page with redirect.” Anyone dealt with this before? Validating did nothing. For background I have not customized robots.txt.

I have “point URLS to primary domain for better SEO” already enabled, so there is a canonical URL. What’s going on here?

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This is what I see under “crawl requests.”

I don’t have any redirects set up on the index page and it works fine from desktop/mobile.

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boston85719 · 2024-12-16T04:37:50.471Z

If you have a go to page action on page is loaded, I think google views that as a redirect. I had this happening due to multi language app. The fix for that was to not use bubble built in language tools since it requires a page refresh, which google viewed as a redirect.

In the response it looks like the 301 redirects are the cause, likely you have some sort of server side redirect taking place, maybe for the sake of ‘security’?

randomanon · 2024-12-16T05:34:00.191Z

I have a serverside redirect on certain pages, but none are in the sitemap and definitely not the index. It loads just fine on my phone/desktop from an incogneto browser.

The crawl request was for the index page. The index page does have a handful of “go to page” actions but these are on click. Not on load. I know it’s better to use a “Link” element than a button element when navigating to different pages (for SEO purposes) but it hasn’t been a high priority to fix this. Could it be these you think?

boston85719 · 2024-12-16T07:06:13.804Z

randomanon:

I know it’s better to use a “Link” element than a button element when navigating to different pages (for SEO purposes) but it hasn’t been a high priority to fix this. Could it be these you think?

No. In my apps, I use the ‘best of both worlds’ approach…that is to have a link element under a button, the link is for seo, and not available for click by user since it is under the button, while button does the navigation workflow (normally to same page, which gives the better UX of page not needing to reload)…in my apps, this does not affect SEO negatively as it doesn’t impact the ‘redirect’ issue.

Does google give any indication as to the URL it is redirected to?

randomanon · 2024-12-16T12:22:07.286Z

Do you need to put it right under the button or could you just throw them at the very bottom of a page out of sight? Good point about the page not needing to reload. I guess the tradeoff is that you can’t CTRL/middle click the link to open it. Google is being useless as it usually is, just says the home page is redirecting. I have a feeling it has to do with the non-trailing slash version redirecting to the trailing slash version before I enabled canonical URLs, but that should be fixed after checking the box. At a loss here…

boston85719 · 2024-12-16T14:46:26.414Z

You could put them anywhere, but I think Google reads the HTML and might pick up on it as I believe it’s termed link stuffing, which is adding lots of links that are not accessible just to create interlinking.

If it’s your index page, why do you need canonical url? My understanding of canonical urls is it’s used for things like product pages that could be accessed from a variety of links, mostly through filters passed through URL, so the site doesn’t get hit with duplicated content.

randomanon · 2024-12-17T00:45:12.496Z

boston85719:

You could put them anywhere, but I think Google reads the HTML and might pick up on it as I believe it’s termed link stuffing, which is adding lots of links that are not accessible just to create interlinking.

Hmm makes sense.

boston85719:

If it’s your index page, why do you need canonical url?

My understanding was that checkbox applies to your whole app. I think without it there are issues with site.com/index and site.com/index/ being duplicated.

boston85719 · 2024-12-17T06:11:52.314Z

randomanon:

My understanding was that checkbox applies to your whole app. I think without it there are issues with site.com/index and site.com/index/ being duplicated.

I am not sure about the checkbox and how that works in reality, since it seems strange that a single checkbox could take care of all the potential canonical url needs of an entire app.

Here is what ChatGPT says:

Best Practice:

Set up a 301 Redirect: Redirect all traffic from www.myapp.com to www.myapp.com/. Most web servers or platforms like Bubble.io allow you to configure this.
Add a Canonical Tag: In the <head> section of your preferred page (www.myapp.com/), add:

html

Copy code

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.myapp.com/" />

This explicitly tells search engines that the www.myapp.com/ version is canonical.
3. Ensure Internal Links Use the Canonical URL:
Wherever possible, your internal links and sitemaps should point directly to the canonical version (www.myapp.com/).

Will Google Still Index the Page?

Yes, Google will index www.myapp.com/ (the redirected page). A 301 redirect ensures search engines understand which version to index, and they follow the redirect seamlessly. Users and search engines will be sent to the preferred version without losing SEO benefits.

randomanon · 2024-12-17T07:30:35.191Z

I noticed that the canonical link already present in my bubble app has no “www.”

It’s just site.com/

Deleted the www property from google and added the domain-wide one, maybe this will do the trick.

randomanon · 2024-12-19T07:56:08.977Z

OK, in case it helps anyone else, it was because I was using the www version instead of the top-level domain one. When you see this, choose the one on the LEFT. Hope this helps the next person who has this issue.

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system · 2025-02-24T01:56:00.244Z

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