How to Get Rid of Google Indexing Issues by Changing Blogger Template

By Zainurrahman October 10, 2021 Post a Comment

Using certain templates can prevent Google from indexing your blog. To get rid of this issue, make sure to use any blogger templates that help Googlebot to crawl and index your blog.

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Most bloggers tend to pick modern-look and sophisticated template for their BlogSpot, but I recommend you to install SE Optimized ones. While it is not wise to mention what template should (or shouldn’t) be used, here is what you can do to determine whether to use (or not to use) a blogger template.

1. Pick the Simplest Template

“Simplest” is not a name of blogger theme. It is how a blogger theme looks like. By simplest, I mean, you need to pick a blogger template that contains not too many sophisticated features like fancy dropdown menus, too many social bookmarks, animations, mega menus, and shortcodes. A blogger template is enough to have one header, two top navigation bars, one sidebar, and one footer.

Mega menu, for example, is a feature in many blogger templates that use JQuery to display a row of random (or recent) posts when they are hovered. The header of these menu does not contain any link because they are replaced by shortcodes. Googlebot will identify the header of mega menu as broken link and this hurts your blog SEO. Therefore, not using mega menu in your template prevents you from having broken links in your navigation bar.

2. Check the Broken Links

Assume that you are using a blogger template without mega menu, it does not mean that your blog is now free from broken links. Broken links are not always on your page, it can be somewhere in the codes of the template. For example, the template is using a plugin hosted somewhere but is now inaccessible, it is a broken link in the eyes of Googlebot.

I recommend you to test the template first by using broken link checkers available on the internet. Usually, I use Dr. Link Checker to check if my blog has broken links. You can use Bing Site Scan if it happen that you are using Bing webmaster. If you find broken links in your blogger template, you should either fix the links or pick another theme.

3. Use Fast Loading Template

There is a blogger template named Fastest but it is not what I mean here. A fast loading blogger template is a theme without too many JavaScripts and Styles inside. Open the template XML file and see if you find unimportant JavaScripts either within the <head> tag or above the </body> tag. If you are not sure about it, you can use Google PageInsight or GT Metrix to evaluate your blog performance.

Of course, as your blog grows, the content of your blog also determines its performance. Using a lot of high resolution images also impact your blog loading time. Moreover, when your blog displays ads, it will also slow down your page loading time. The point I am making here is to test the performance of the template while it is still empty. You can do it by installing a new template on a new blogger account and test it. If your blog contains render-blocking resource, you can fix them to increase the page loading time. You can also deactivate unwanted JavaScript or CSS from the template. Don’t forget to delete that account after testing a template.

Remember that Googlebot has limited time to crawl your blog. When it takes too long time to load your blog, it will simply skip your blog.

4. Check the URL of your Post, is it Canonical or Redirect?

Certain blogger template does not show the canonical URL of your post. In other words, the URL has been modified. For example, by default, the URL of your post looks like this:

https://yourblog.blogspot.com/2021/09/how-to-make-a-blog.html

Some blogger templates have this URL modified into:

https://yourblog.blogspot.com/how-to-make-a-blog

This modified URL is not canonical and will direct the Googlebot to 404 page. I have tested this many times. When the URL is accessed via browsers, the URL redirected me to the canonical URL. However, when I submitted the URL on Google Search Console, the URL was simply not found.

It is recommended to use a blogger template that shows canonical URL of each post and page of your blog. Otherwise, although the problems can come later, but it definitely will. My experience showed me that after using this kind of theme and migrating to another theme where the canonical URL is used, indexing issues raised.

Final thoughts

It is true that the overall quality of your blog determines the chance of your blog to get indexed by Google (or not). The value of your posts play important roles here. However, Googlebot does not only check whether your posts are valuable or not. It also evaluates the performance and health of your blog. Therefore, changing your blogger template from a “bad” one to a “good” one is a way to get rid of Google indexing issue.

Writing and Blogging