Elgg SEO - Google not indexing blog articles?

I'm having problems getting Google to index my blog articles. I can find the 'MyDomain blog' on Google, but if I search on 'MyDomain article name' I can't.

I've pushed the index on Google webmaster tools even and still nothing.

Anyone else having this problem? Ideas for solutions?

  • my blogs appear that i added 2+ weeks previous. the one from 1 week ago is not indexed yet.
    i haven't done anything specific for seo.. i copied the robots.txt file from community.elgg.org.

  • Thanks for helping out ura soul!

    Is everything else on your Elgg also being indexed with a 2 week delay?

    How does one go about copying the robot.txt from this website?

    I'm seeing this problem on two different Elgg websites I have. One one of them other things are indexed within the hour of posting.

  • By adding my Elgg RSS feeds to Google Webmasters Tools as sitemaps, I have been able to solve the problem. All my blog posts from my two elgg installations are now being indexed on Google. I can't tell yet how fast after publication, but it looks like it's a matter of hours at the most. 

    My worry was that something in the Elgg system somehow was bad for Google SEO. At least it can be circumvented.

    ATT: If the Elgg team wants their clients becoming successful - this might be very valuable information to post in bold letters !

    At least now I'm no my way to grow my traffic even more. And a very important notice in all of this is that while I of course was concerned when I discovered that blog posts were not being indexed from two different elgg installations, I have had very GOOD experiences with my Elgg system being indexed immediately on Google. And with this Blog problem being solved, I'm in the fast lane now :)

     

  • @BrianF: i have this experience with media uploads of users on my site not indexed on search engines.how did you add your elgg rss feeds to google webmaster tools?

    Have you tried to search your site on other search engines?

    @ ura soul: how is the robots.txt on elgg be depLoyed?

  • i just realised (i previously forgot) that i have the xml-sitemap plugin installed and google etc. have been notified. that is the only step i took, seems you found an equivalent.

    you can just go to: http://community.elgg.org/robots.txt

    and copy that file to the root of your site.. making any changes as you prefer for your version of elgg and your own site's structure.

  • @ura: you mean the robot.txt file will be on the root folder like this: www.mysite.com/robots.txt

  • Not sure what I am doing wrong. I need google to properly index elgg site, otherwise it is useless

     

    I have tried adding rss feed as a sitemap in google webmaster tools for the site, but I keep getting 404 error

    When I try and open the link I use it works, but not through webmaster tools. When I add a url the entry space is http not https, site uses ssl, and I see no option to change to https in webmaster tools.

    There is already a working sitemap in there, from the old site rss feed, so I know it works with ssl & the site itself.

     

    I am trying  elgg_dir/activity/?view=rss, and elgg_dir/activity/index.php?view=rss but neither can be found by google webmaster tools

  • The robot.txt is still making any positive change to the site.

  • robot text stops google from seeing your whole site and just goes to areas that you specify in the robots text so maybe try removing the robots text