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Why is my website not showing up on Google? How this situation can be fixed?
When you publish a website for whatever purpose, it is intended that this website be noticed by users. Since there are billions of websites in the world, one of the best ways to stand out from so many competitors is to rank in search engines.Of course, search engines (especially Google, the most used) aim to show users the websites with the best content. However, in some cases, even if the best content is on your website, your website will not appear in the search results. This may be due to very complex reasons, or your website may not appear in Google search results due to some very simple technical reasons. However, at the end of the day, your website not appearing in google search results will become a big problem for you.Here is the good news for you. We have made a research about the main technical deficiencies that cause not to show up on Google and other search engines as well.But before the problems and solutions let’s discuss how a website can be realized by search engines.Which factors should i take care for my website to show up on Google?Actually there are plenty of factors while Google rank all web sites. But basically there are 3 main factors which a website is taken into consideration by Google: 1. If the structure of the website is simple to understand this website is crawled very easily. On the contrary, if a website’s structure is hard to understand for search engine bots then this website isn’t on the search results. This situation defines indexability issues for a website. 2. If a website doesn’t set up correctly with main elements this website doesn’t present a good service for its users. Main technical issues for a website must be fixed immediately. For example; if a website doesn’t have SSL certificate it means that this website isn’t safe. Users avoid to use that kind of websites, so Google does. 3. If the content structure of a website doesn’t build with correct keywords and these keywords don’t reflect user’s intent in a right way, this causes not showing up on Google for the website. Even if all other elements are okay not possessing good content alone brings invisibility on the search results for the website. These are the most seen issues why a website isn’t ranked on Google search results. Here are the most common problems related with these crawling, technical or content issues lead to not showing up on Google.1. The site/page that wanted to be ranked is too new.There are billions of websites on the internet. Sorting and showing these websites to users by indexing is, of course, a very difficult problem for Google to solve. Therefore, it is not very common for a recently opened website to be indexed quickly in Google. It would be unrealistic to expect a website opened yesterday to appear on Google search results pages today. The easiest way to see if a website is included in Google search results is to search for "site:sitename" on Google. For example; our search for our AnalyticaHouse website shows that 192 pages of the website are in the Google index. If no results like the one above are found as a result of the search made in this way, the searched website has not yet been discovered by Google.How to fix it?The easiest way to get Google to discover a website is to create a sitemap with site URLs and upload it from Search Console. The sitemap for a website is usually located at sitename.com/sitemap.xml. For example; The sitemap for AnalyticaHouse is available at analyticahouse.com/sitemap.xml If a website does not have a sitemap file, there are different methods to create it. The most practical of these methods is to get the URLs found as an XML file by crawling the website with the tools that crawl the website. An example of these tools is xml-sitemaps.com. The xml file obtained by typing the website URL into the relevant field should be added to the root directory on the website server. Then this generated sitemap file should be submitted from Google Search Console. Search Console>Sitemaps>Enter Sitemap URL>Submit For example, when a new sitemap file is prepared for our AnalyticaHouse site, this file URL should be entered in the "Add a new sitemap" section above and "Submit". Then Google will crawl all the URLs in this sitemap and index the site.2. Blocking search engines from indexing or crawling the websiteSometimes Google does not index the pages it crawls. This is because the site owner has told Google not to index that page. The noindex tag on a page serves this function. If a page contains a code like the one below, Google will not index that page.Similarly, a certain page or entire website can be prevented from being crawled by Google. The site's robots.txt file is used to prevent such crawling. The robots.txt file for a website can be viewed at “sitename.com/robots.txt”. If you see a command that starts with "Disallow:" in the robots.txt file, as follows, crawling will not be allowed for the URL structure after this command. For example; above is the AnalyticaHouse robots file accessed from “analyticahouse.com/robots.txt”. We see that there are two URLs blocked by the Disallow command on the AnalyticaHouse site. These commands mean that the URLs "analyticahouse.com/privacy-policy" and "analyticahouse.com/tr/gizlilik-politikamiz" are not allowed to be crawled.How to fix it?Pages that are not indexed by Google due to the noindex tag are specified with their details in the "Indexing" section of Google Search Console. For example; the "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" warning for the AnalyticaHouse website indicates that there are 5 pages that are blocked from being indexed using the noindex tag, as follows. In the same section, the pages that are blocked from crawling by robots are indicated with the following warning. Pages specified in this way should be detected from the error details and noindex tags on the relevant pages should be removed. For pages blocked by robots, the robots.txt file should be edited and the Disallow command in URLs blocked with Disallow should be removed in this file.3. The website might be penalised by Google.The website may have been penalized by Google, although this is very rare. Because of this penalty, it may not be seen in the search results. There are two different types of Google penalties:If the structure of the website is simple to understand this website is crawled very easily. On the contrary, if a website’s structure is hard to understand for search engine bots then this website isn’t on the search results. This situation defines indexability issues for a website.If a website doesn’t set up correctly with main elements this website doesn’t present a good service for its users. Main technical issues for a website must be fixed immediately. For example; if a website doesn’t have SSL certificate it means that this website isn’t safe. Users avoid to use that kind of websites, so Google does.If the content structure of a website doesn’t build with correct keywords and these keywords don’t reflect user’s intent in a right way, this causes not showing up on Google for the website. Even if all other elements are okay not possessing good content alone brings invisibility on the search results for the website. Algorithmic: These are penalties detected by Google algorithms and applied for simpler reasons compared to relatively manual penalties. These penalties are detected by some tools. Manual: It is the most objectionable penalty type applied as a result of detecting actions contrary to Webmaster Guidelines by a Google employee from the search results of the website. This type of manual penalty is reported to the site owner via Search Console. How to fix it?Manual penalties are detailed in the "Manual Actions" section of Search Console. If there is a notification here, solutions for this notification should be planned and the site should be edited according to the guideline here and Google should be applied to remove the penalty. Google penalties originating from the algorithm can be detected with different tools. Among these tools, Panguin Tool is a very functional one. As above, it clearly reveals the relationship between algorithm updates and Google organic users, and ensures that user decreases for algorithm-based penalties are instantly noticed. Algorithm-based penalties can be easily detected with many different tools other than Penguin. If such a penalty is encountered, spam arrangements that will cause a penalty on the site should be removed quickly. You can also check out our content on Google penalties for more details. 4. The website might not have enough quality backlinks.Although the website is technically crawled and indexed by Google without any problems, there is another factor that will prove to Google that this site is worth ranking: Backlinks. Quality backlinks from websites with high authority in the eyes of Google provide a noticeable increase in the ranking of a website. It may take time for Google to discover websites that do not have sufficient backlinks, even if the content is of good quality. There are many studies that reveal the positive relationship between the number of backlinks and the words ranking in Google. Among these, the chart below, made by Ahrefs, shows this relationship quite clearly. Source: https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/2791107-what-s-the-difference-between-referring-domains-and-backlinksHow to fix it?There are many different methods to increase the number of backlinks of a website. The best backlink method recommended by Google and stated to be taken into account is the backlinks naturally obtained from a relevant content on a website with high authority. For details on the importance of backlinks and backlink earning methods, see “What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?” check out our article.5. The Website might be so slowGoogle has identified site speed as a direct ranking factor in recent years. If a website loads slowly and has speed issues, its performance in search results will also be poor. On the contrary, fast websites are rewarded with good ranking results by Google. Slow sites are not liked by Google and are not preferred by internet users. Many studies have revealed that 53% of site visitors who cannot react within 3 seconds, especially for mobile sites, exit the site immediately. Therefore, if the website is slow, speeding up the site will definitely increase the search visibility.How to fix it?Site speed score can be measured by means of speed measurement tools such as Google Page Speed Insights or GTMetrix. These types of tools evaluate the speed performance of a website on both mobile and desktop with a score out of 100. These types of tools make suggestions as follows for technical arrangements that can be made to load a website faster. As seen above, there are some suggestions to increase the speed performance of the website. These suggestions also show which files are causing the delays by these tools. For example; to implement the properly size images suggestion at the top, the images on the website should be added in appropriate sizes for the appropriate areas.ConclusionOf course, not all the reasons why a website is not ranked by Google are not the reasons we mentioned above. Apart from these, there may be sequencing problems for many different reasons. However, if the reason for not being included in the ranking is due to a technical problem such as the noindex tag or the disallow command in the robots file, it will not be able to be ranked in any way until this problem is resolved. Besides, improvements to be made for problems related to site content will make it easier to get results. Regardless of the reason, however, it should be known that SEO is a discipline that requires constant attention, and it needs to be followed closely on both technical and content issues to ensure that the website has better ranking performance.
The 5 Most Common Reporting Errors in GA4
Released in beta in October 2020, GA4 became mandatory for all non-360 accounts as of July 2023. From that point on, accounts with GA4 integration must manage their entire reporting workflow through GA4.Although GA4’s interface is more user-friendly than Universal Analytics, many reporting errors still occur. In this article, we cover the five most common GA4 reporting mistakes and how to fix them. Missing Data Sometimes you’ll see no data at all in GA4. This usually happens because the tracking code is installed incorrectly or blocked in the user’s browser. To fix it: In GA4, go to Property → Data Streams → Web and copy the Measurement ID of your stream. Install that ID either by hard-coding it into your page source or by adding a “GA4 Configuration” tag in GTM. Data Duplication Often this is caused by having the GA4 snippet both hard-coded and deployed via GTM. Use only one method—either install directly in your HTML or via GTM, but not both. Misinterpreting Data – UA vs. GA4 Comparison Universal Analytics (UA) and GA4 use different data models (UA: session/last-click; GA4: event/last-engagement) and serve different use cases. Comparing their reports side by side leads to confusion. Instead: Learn what each metric and dimension means in its own context. Choose the tool that best fits your needs rather than forcing a direct comparison. For more details, see: Differences Between UA and GA4 Attribution Model Differences Last Non-Direct Click: Ignores direct traffic and credits the last non-direct source. Last Click: Includes all sources and credits the very last click. Invalid Data Filters Filters that are too strict or misconfigured can exclude valid data. Check your filters under Admin → Data Settings → Data Filters and ensure you only filter out truly unwanted traffic. Overwhelmed Analysis Interface When you have thousands of events and parameters, GA4’s UI can become unwieldy. For large datasets, enable the GA4–BigQuery link and perform your complex queries in BigQuery for more reliable, scalable analysis.
Website Design from an Analytics Perspective
A website’s UX compatibility and healthy analytics measurement require the site design and technical infrastructure to be structured according to the following points: The GTM (Google Tag Manager) snippet must load before the dataLayer. This ensures that the data needed for analytics and tracking is collected and recorded correctly. If the GTM snippet loads after the dataLayer, it can lead to missing or inaccurate data. Therefore, loading GTM before the dataLayer is essential. Technically, the page structure should not be a single-page application. Single-page sites often cause problems for Analytics measurement and GTM setups. Single-Page; i.e., one-page websites that present all content on a single page. Users scroll or search within that single page to find the content they need. Why Your Site Shouldn’t Be Single-Page Content Density: If a site has a lot of content, cramming it all onto one page makes searching and scanning harder. Splitting content across multiple pages helps users find what they need more easily. SEO Improvements: A multi-page structure allows unique meta tags, titles, and descriptions per page, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index each page. Load Time: Too much content on one page slows down loading. Multiple pages reduce load time and improve user experience. Management Ease: Managing and updating content is simpler when it’s organized across several pages rather than all on one. Content Focus: Multi-page sites let you optimize each page for a single topic or purpose, making messaging clearer and helping users find relevant content. Of course, every site has different needs, and some cases may suit a single-page design. But generally, multi-page sites organize content better, enhance UX, and are more SEO-friendly. Follow Jakob’s Law in your site design to give users a familiar, efficient experience. Instead of reinventing the wheel, integrate standard interaction patterns and refine your design accordingly. When positioning elements, remember user attention decreases from header to footer. Critical conversion-driving components should be placed where they will get the most visibility. The menu should reflect a clear category hierarchy and serve users efficiently, in line with UX best practices. A site’s category hierarchy organizes content and guides users to find what they need. It shows relationships between topics and improves navigation. For example, an e-commerce store uses nested product categories, while a news site groups articles by topic and subtopic.Category hierarchies also help site search engines surface relevant results within a selected category, making content discovery easier. Add a breadcrumb trail made of subcategories so both users and search engines can understand and navigate the site structure. Breadcrumb is a navigation element that shows a page’s position within the site. It typically appears near the top of the page as a series of links like “Home > Section > Subsection”. Pages should load ideally in under 2.5 seconds. Page speed is critical for Analytics and CRO, so optimize technically for fast performance. Use the brand colors and typography defined in the brand book consistently across all elements. Keep URLs as short and meaningful as possible. Append paths that follow the category hierarchy. On an e-commerce site, structure the funnel so users start their conversion path as quickly as possible, offering a straightforward, fast, practical experience. Optimize images: product image files should be under 100 KB to maintain speed. Banner sizes may vary. Also ensure filenames and alt text match the image and page content for better crawling. Downloadable links (e.g., PDFs) should not open in a new page. Serve them directly so tracking treats them as downloads. Avoid “ghost search” in-site search implementations. They hinder tracking and analysis of search terms. Ghost Search automatically shows results before a user types in the search box. While meant to help discovery, it can surface irrelevant results and hurt performance. It’s better to implement a simple, user-friendly search that returns accurate results without extra resource usage. Minimize click depth: users should reach content in as few clicks as possible (ideally 2–3). Deep hierarchies hurt UX; design to keep navigation shallow. On an e-commerce site, prevent “dead clicks” by prompting users when they miss an action (e.g., “Add to cart” or login). This reduces drop-off and improves conversion rate. Banner images linking to listing pages should include clickable links so users can initiate the conversion journey directly. On product pages, add a related-products slider (“You might also like”) to increase engagement and conversion.
2023 Trends in the Digital World
The digital world continues to grow and evolve with advancing technology. In order to keep up with innovations driven by leading tech companies like Google, Meta, and Apple, brands and websites must follow the latest trends of 2023 and integrate them into their own practices. In this article, we’ll share the key digital trends for 2023 so you can improve your measurement, stay on trend, and remain competitive in digital marketing.What Awaits Us in 2023?In 2023, the data and analytics driving digital marketing will shift toward a more human-centered approach, with artificial intelligence and machine learning playing an increasingly prominent role. As emphasis on data security grows, analytics professionals will take on ever more critical responsibilities. The practical trends we expect in 2023 are: More Human-Centered Digital Marketing: Delivering personalized, human-centric experiences will be essential. Marketers will leverage customer behavior, interests, and purchase data to craft highly targeted campaigns. Rise of AI & ML Applications: Artificial intelligence and machine learning will become more widespread, enabling deeper data analysis, more accurate predictions, and faster decision-making. AI will help marketers create more effective campaigns by understanding individual interests and purchase behavior. Greater Emphasis on Data Security: With rising data breaches and cyberattacks, companies will invest more in protecting customer data. Privacy regulations like GDPR will guide best practices. Advanced Data Visualization: Comprehensive visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Looker Studio) will become even more important for rapid, insightful decision-making. IoT Marketing: The Internet of Things will drive new customer insights via device-to-device data collection, allowing marketers to tailor products and services more precisely. The technical and theoretical digital trends for 2023 include: Meta – Conversions API (CAPI) Google – Server-Side Tagging Google – BigQuery ChatGPT UX Laws & Neuroscience Techniques Meta – Conversions API (CAPI)Conversions API is designed by Meta to create a direct connection between marketing data and ad optimization, reducing cost-per-action and improving measurement across Meta technologies. To send website events via CAPI, you set up and configure a server on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), then forward GA4 web tag data to that server and onward to Meta via CAPI.With Conversions API: Brands lower their cost-per-action. Campaigns become easier to optimize. User data is sent directly from your server to Facebook’s, bypassing cookies and preserving privacy post-iOS 14. Ad performance measurement becomes more reliable. CAPI data is less prone to errors than pixel-based tracking. Google – Server-Side TaggingServer-Side Tagging moves measurement tags from the client (browser) to a server you control (e.g., on GCP). This approach offers several advantages over client-side tagging: Fewer tags on your site/app, improving frontend performance. Better data protection by processing user data in a customer-managed server environment. Simplifies manual CAPI integrations via GTM. Google – BigQueryBigQuery, launched in 2012 on Google’s Dremel technology, is an enterprise data warehouse for fast SQL analytics at scale. With GA4 becoming mandatory in July 2023, brands need BigQuery to store data long-term, visualize accurately, and perform deep analyses.Why BigQuery? Secure, long-term data storage and advanced brand-specific analyses are crucial in 2023. GA4’s default data retention is only two months (extendable to 14). BigQuery removes time limits entirely. It captures every custom event and parameter in one table without row limits. Columnar storage and a tree architecture enable lightning-fast queries on massive datasets. Combines online/offline data for advanced analytics (CLV, clustering, association analysis, etc.) and supports built-in ML. Supports cross-platform measurement by joining data from various tools and CRM systems via user ID. Deep analytics in BigQuery lets you—for example—exclude offline purchases from online campaign audiences, boosting conversion rates.ChatGPTUndoubtedly the most talked-about AI of 2023 is ChatGPT. This conversational AI, powered by GPT-3.5, generates real-time, human-like responses—even writing code. Its ability to understand and answer virtually any question places it firmly among the year’s top trends.UX Laws & NeuroscienceNeuroscience studies the nervous system. By integrating physiology, anatomy, maths, developmental biology, and psychology, it explains learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness. UX laws and neuroscience techniques apply these principles to web design to create more intuitive, brain-friendly user experiences. Every user interacting with your design follows certain psychological principles. For 2023, brands will use neuroscience to inform UX analyses and optimize site design for human cognition.For more on UX laws and neuroscience, see UX Laws & Neuro Science. If you haven’t implemented these integrations yet in Q1 2023, act quickly—don’t miss the trend.
What is GDPR? Is GA4 GDPR Compliant?
Data privacy has become increasingly important in recent years. This is due to consumers’ and users’ concerns about protecting their personal data and governments enacting various laws to safeguard that data. In this article, we’ll focus on Google Analytics 4’s (GA4) data privacy features and examine whether these features comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).What Is GDPR?GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a data privacy regulation that came into effect in 2018. It governs how organizations in the European Union collect, process, and store personal data. GDPR adopts a user-centric approach to privacy, requiring organizations to explain what data they collect, how they use it, and with whom they share it.Whom Does GDPR Cover?GDPR sets standards for processing personal data in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA), establishing principles of transparency, fairness, purpose limitation, accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality.All companies operating within the EU or EEA must comply with GDPR when processing personal data. Moreover, any company outside the EU/EEA that handles personal data of EU/EEA residents must also adhere to GDPR rules.For example, an EU citizen visiting Turkey as a tourist falls outside GDPR’s scope while abroad. Conversely, a non-EU citizen in an EU country is protected under GDPR. If a U.S. citizen visits Germany, German organizations must handle that person’s data in compliance with GDPR, even though the individual is not an EU citizen.Does GDPR Apply in the U.K.?GDPR took effect in the U.K. in May 2018. After Brexit, the U.K. incorporated GDPR into its own Data Protection Act, maintaining equivalent protections for personal data.History of Privacy Fines Against Google AnalyticsGDPR has empowered data subjects with greater control over their personal information. Since its enforcement on May 25, 2018, Google has faced significant fines under GDPR. In March 2020, Sweden fined Google LLC €7 million for violating Article 17(1)(a) by not removing search results upon request. Then in December 2021, France’s CNIL fined Google €150 million because users could not refuse tracking cookies as easily as they could accept them. Google Ireland was fined €60 million, and Google LLC €90 million for the same issue.French regulators also rejected GA4’s IP-anonymization as insufficient to protect data transferred to the U.S. The EU Court of Justice in July 2020 invalidated the Privacy Shield framework governing EU-U.S. data transfers, further complicating Google’s ability to move EU data to its U.S. servers.Other data protection authorities in Austria, the Netherlands, and Norway have similarly found Google Analytics non-compliant with GDPR, threatening fines or restrictions.What Is Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?PII refers to any data that can identify an individual—name, address, birthdate, phone number, email, national ID, passport number, etc. Protecting PII is critical because its exposure can reveal someone’s identity and personal details.GA4’s User Privacy FeaturesGoogle Analytics 4 offers several privacy-focused settings, allowing site owners to honor user consent while still gaining useful insights. Two key areas under Data Settings are Data Collection and Data Retention. Let’s explore them.Data Collection SettingsYou can access Data Collection under Admin > Data Settings > Data Collection:Google Signals Enabling Google Signals allows GA4 to link signed-in users’ site/app data with their Google accounts, provided they’ve consented to ad personalization. Signals lets you use location, search, YouTube, and partner-site data in aggregate, anonymized reports. Users can manage this via myactivity.google.com.Location & Device DataTurning on these options lets Analytics collect geographic and device information, with the ability to exclude specific countries.User Data Collection ConsentHere, you confirm that your site/app informs users how their data will be collected and shared with Analytics, and that you’ve obtained their consent accordingly.Data Retention SettingsData Retention lets you choose how long user-level and event-level data are kept (2 or 14 months). You can also reset user data on each new session. Your choice should reflect your industry’s needs and the sensitivity of the information collected.IP AnonymizationGA4 anonymizes the last 8 bits of each user’s IP address by default, fully embedding anonymization in its data model. This protects users’ privacy while still providing geographic and device insights needed for analysis.Consent ModeWhen users deny cookie consent, your Analytics data will be incomplete. Consent Mode uses machine learning to model those users’ behavior based on similar consenting users, preserving privacy while retaining useful insights in your reports.Server Location & Data Transfer Restrictions in GA4Under GDPR, transferring personal data from the EEA or U.K. to outside jurisdictions without adequate safeguards is restricted. GA4 users cannot choose where their data is stored—much of Google’s infrastructure is in the U.S. If you process EU/U.K. personal data in GA4, you must ensure compliant transfer mechanisms are in place, often requiring legal consultancy.
How to Identify Unused CSS and JS Lines?
Website speed is one of the most important metrics in SEO efforts. Nowadays, almost every search engine emphasizes fast-loading web pages, low DOM size, and minimal resource consumption. Therefore, search engines tend to avoid ranking pages that load slowly, contain unnecessary lines of code, or use excessively large DOM elements, as these are considered to provide a poor user experience.Through free speed analysis tools such as Pagespeed or GTMetrix, the most common issues we encounter are the warnings "Reduce Unused CSS" and "Reduce Unused JavaScript".Before taking any action on these warnings, it is essential to analyze the causes properly and understand which CSS and JavaScript files/libraries exist in the underlying structure of our website.Why Does the “Reduce Unused CSS and JavaScript” Warning Occur?In general, e-commerce platforms contain ready-made CSS and JavaScript libraries. Since these libraries are designed to be useful for any type of website, they include many CSS classes and JavaScript functions that we do not use.We can identify the CSS lines and JavaScript functions in these files that are not used on our website, clean them from the files, and make our pages load with higher performance. You can apply the method we share below on your own website to detect these lines!How to Detect Unused CSS and JavaScript Lines?First, after entering your website, right-click on the page you want to analyze and select "Inspect".Then, in the opened DevTools panel, click the three-dot icon on the right and activate More Tools > Coverage.At the bottom, in the Coverage panel, click the reload button to refresh the page and allow DevTools to load the CSS and JavaScript files on the page.Click on any of the loaded CSS/JavaScript files to open it in the DevTools tab.In the opened CSS/JavaScript file, sections highlighted in blue indicate that the corresponding CSS line/JavaScript function is actively used on the page, while sections highlighted in red indicate that it is unused.This way, we can easily determine which lines and functions in all CSS and JavaScript files hosted in our website's structure are used and which are not.What to Consider Before Cleaning Unused CSS and JS?Although it may seem that many of the codes in the CSS and JavaScript libraries loaded on our pages are unused, there are important points to consider before performing any cleanup. Before cleaning unused CSS and JS, make sure to pay attention to the following: Ensure that the relevant CSS/JS code is not used on every browser, device, or page. Some JavaScript functions only run on specific events. For example, functions triggered by user-side events like scroll or click should be carefully analyzed for active/inactive status before cleanup. Before cleaning CSS and JS, identify the files that increase your browser’s DOM size. Do not waste time on small CSS and JS files. Always back up your website before performing optimizations! By using this method, you can detect and clean unused CSS and JavaScript lines on your website, allowing your pages to load faster and provide a better experience for visitors!