Web Skills

Am beginning to think my indexing problems are related to the need to redirect urls to the https version.

I have ‘forced’ a redirect on The Food Route for all domains and requested that the outstanding post as well as England and Channel Island pages are indexed.

Traditional boerewors – Index pages appear to getting indexed rather than regional lists

Scotland (not indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer (no change 7/5). No Index 7/5

Northern Ireland (indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer and no indexed ‘Recommendations’ (no change 7/5)

South East England (indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer and no indexed ‘Recommendations’ (no change 7/5) Hampshire indexed and has a footer link to SE but so does West Sussex which is not indexed. No index South East England 7/5

East England (indexed 7/5) – Links in place  x1 post indexed x2 adjacent posts de-indexed (Previous and Next links? No pagination for canonical pages swoitched off?) Otherwise no clue

 

Indexing is a cat and mouse game.

Google is continually changing it’s algorithim to try and stay away one step ahead of the multitude of keyboard fanatics that are doing whatever they can to get into the top rankings. Originally Google came up with the idea of Page Rank. This to try and keep them happy. To give them something to obsess about which had nothing to do with anything.

However as the noise reached fever pitch Google had no option other than to quietly drop it. The grift became an embarassment and the metric became an ethical hadache for a corporation that started with the lofty ideal of ‘do no evil.

Nothing has changed however. Such is the mass appeal for disinformation and the need to mask the simplicity of what is a tool that should be accessable to all.

The latest hurdle that has been introduced is a duplicate content filter and god only knows how the brilliant minds at Google have figured this one out. Post gets indexed one month and de-indexed the next. Frustrating……,..

As most of us do,  I spend a lot of time looking for the stuff.  Searching and scouring the net for this and that.

Turning page after page. Taking wrong turns, missing what should be obvious until I trip over the one link I need. Generating traffic, clicks and hits.  The very stuff that drives the web and adds value to all we do.

Experience.

Information and know-how that we could share. We have all the tools we need to make it happen.  To offer a service. To make ourselves useful. To add value, improve and grow a resource we all use.

Local knowledge, local experts, local advice and assistance – Web Guides

I experienced a problem with one of my Add On domains.  Every time I tried updating I would get locked out. This we sort of resolved by deactivating the Mod_Secuity setting.

But there was still a problem. I couldn’t upload an image until I figured out that I needed to upgrade to the latest version of php installed on the server.

A little thing that takes up way too much time to sort out.

There is a section on the Dashboard called Site Health which lists any exceptions that have been noted. Something I have never bothered with.  But I looked at it and discovered I was running on a version of php which was out dated. This took me to Cpanel/Software where I clicked on Select PHP Version.

The last one was  native 7.2 which I shied away from and selected 7.4 instead. I am not sure why nor what the implications are. Nor do I know why I then pressed Reset Defaults. But it appeared to work. Site Health changed to Good.

But I still couldn’t upload pictures.

They were apparently too big. From what I understood there was 2 meg limit in the WordPress settings and I had already resized the images I was working with. What I didn’t know was that there is server setting in Cpanel under the PHP Version which I needed to edit after clicking Options and scrolling down to the last field.

We have to get our two boys into school in the UK. But itgets a little complicated. Particularly with our eldest son who is seventeen and who has not sat the GCSE’s which he needs to get into College.

Another long term project digging out the information that should be easier to find than it is and archiving it on a couple of workshop sites.

Home schooling options as well the steps one needs to take to get the boys placed in a school and how they are going to catch up what is now two years of formal schooling.

Google’s Search Console and the Community Forum

Have opened an account for Emsworth Local and have made an index request for The Coffeeman’s advert as well as the Medical Practice post .

I then opened a different account and added An English Breakfast making an index request for the First Meal of the Day. I have also added Selsey Local and requested indexing for Places to BBQ.

All indexed within 12 hours.

Have requested that the three outstanding posts on Emsworth Local are crawled as well as Charley’s Jobs Wanted and Rafbar Plumbing adverts. Wanted to add Workshop Web but can’t verify so added African Story and requested the addition of the  three outstanding posts.

Workshop Web verified after twelve hours. But had a problem opening site map list after enabling Site Maps. Wasn’t able to display a page returning an Ooops error report. Waited another twelve hours and problem resolved. Submitted site maps and outstanding posts. All updated

Submitted crawl requests for the rest of the Adverts on Emsworth Local . Also submitted Chichester Harbour.

Some but not all Adverts now indexed on Emsworth Local. Boat Trips on Chichester Harbour not indexed yet. Have submitted site maps for all Local sites. But not crawl requests for the posts.

Every now and again the Search Console comes back with a read error when trying to submit a Site Map.  Sometimes clears simply by clicking the record, other times by resubmitting.