Why Are My Indexed Pages Dropping In Google Webmaster?

If all of sudden, Google Webmaster start dropping indexed pages of your site, then you are at right place. Read below to know how to fix this problem.

To resolve this problem, we had examine all the possible reasons for the decrease in Indexed Pages like

• Ensured proper redirect and use of canonical url
• Ensured there is no penalty or manual action in the Google Webmaster
• Ensured there is no error in the submitted sitemap and
• Ensured https links are appearing in the sitemap

But still sitemap’s indexed pages was dropping. This was happeing in both our WordPress site where we recently installed free SSL Certificate.

Of course, we had added both version of websites to Google Webmaster. We had also checked whether ‘http index was decreasing and https was increasing?‘ But this was not the case. There was no such movement.

So what was the reasons for such dropping indexed pages?

Dropping Indexed Pages

The reason was url rewrite http to https after installing SSL Certificate. Yes you heard it correctly. It was https site which was creating this problem.

But if all url are getting redirected to https site then how this could be possible?

It was possible because sitemap url was accesible on both version. We had not forced WordPress site to use HTTPs on all admin area pages. So, our sitemap url was starting with http url.

So, after redirecting sitemap url to https, Google Webmaster start indexing pages our pages and this problem got resolved.

Check out below image. Google is not indexing our pages in sitemap.

Force HTTPS On All Pages

If you are using WordPress, then mere adding redirect code in htaccess file will not resolve your problem. Adding redirect code will only redirect your frontend url.

In WordPress beside adding redirect code to htaccess file, you need to modify the config.php file. Add below code to your config.php file

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

This will force all admin pages to use https url.

Now your turn. If you have a differenty story to share, then please do share with us. It would be a great help to others.

Further, feel free to contact us if you are facing any problem in implementng above technique.

You can share your problem or feedback in the below comment box. We will try our best to help you.