If you see the page indexed without content warning status in Google Search Console and in the Index Status report of Rank Math’s Analytics, it means that your pages are being indexed by Google, but there is no content appearing on those pages. This can be a big problem, as it will prevent your pages from appearing in search results and drive traffic to your site.
In this knowledgebase article, we’ll explain what causes this warning status, and how to fix it so that your content is properly indexed and ranked on Google.
Table of Contents
1 What Causes the “Page Indexed Without Content” Warning Status?
The “page indexed without content” warning status is caused when a page is indexed by Google, but the page does not have any content. The reasons might be either cloaked to Google, or the page’s robots.txt file is blocking Google from indexing the page’s content.
Some of the most common causes of this warning status are:
- Pages Have Very Little Content: If your pages are empty or have very little content, Google won’t be able to index them properly. As a result, these pages will not appear in search results.
- Blocked by Robots.txt: If your pages are being blocked by robots.txt or meta tags, Google won’t be able to index them properly.
- Content Structure: There is a problem with the structure of your page (for example, your pages are not well-linked together).
2 How Can I Find “Page Indexed Without Content’” Warning Status
The best way to find the “page indexed without content” warning status is to use Google Search Console or the Index Status report in Rank Math’s Analytics.
In the Google Search Console, go to the Coverage section of Google Search Console and click on the Valid with Warnings tab.
Then, click on the “page indexed without content” warning status as shown below:
This will show you a list of all the pages on your website that are returning “page indexed without content’.
In Rank Math analytics, go to the Index Status under Rank Math SEO → Analytics → Index Status tab. Under this tab, you’ll get the real data/status of your pages as well as their presence on Google.
Moreover, you can filter the post’s index status using the drop-down menu. When you select a specific status, say “page indexed without content”, you’ll be able to see all posts that share the same index status.
Once you have the list of pages that are returning this status, you can start to troubleshoot and fix the issue.
3 How Do I Fix the “Page Indexed Without Content” Warning Status
There are a few different ways that you can fix the page indexed without content warning status:
3.1 Check the Structure of the Page
If you see the “page indexed without content” warning status, it could be because of a problem with the structure of your website. If your pages are not well-linked together, Google may not be able to index them properly.
A good internal link structure is important because it helps Google understand the relationship between different pages on your website. It also helps Google crawl your website more efficiently.
Rank Math checks your post/page in real-time and notifies you if your post/page doesn’t have any internal links. The following types of links qualify for this test:
- Links to other posts/pages on your website
- Links to other subdomains on your main domain
- Links to the main domain from a sub-domain
To start building internal links, you can set your important pages as pillar content and let Rank Math suggest relevant internal links.
3.2 Add More Content to the Page
If you see the “page indexed without content” warning status, it could be because your pages have very little content. As we mentioned earlier, if your pages are empty or have very little content, Google won’t be able to index them properly.
To fix this, you need to add more content to your pages. Aim for at least 600 words of unique, well-written content. You can also add images, videos, and infographics to help break up the text and make your pages more visually appealing.
You can learn more about how long should a blog post be.
3.3 Ensure Your Robots.Txt Rules Allow Your Website to Be Indexed
Another potential problem is your robots.txt file. This file tells Google which pages on your website it should and shouldn’t crawl. If you’ve accidentally blocked Google from crawling your website, that could explain why your site isn’t being indexed.
The Disallow tag (in your website’s robots.txt file) blocks Google from crawling all the pages on your site. You can check for the disallow tag and make sure that no such tag is present in the robots.txt, preventing your page from being indexed.
If there is a disallow tag, then change that using the robots.txt editor in Rank Math at WordPress Dashboard → Rank Math SEO → General Settings → Edit Robots.txt.
Related: Learn more about Robots.txt files and how they work.
3.4 Ask Google to Recrawl Your Page
Finally, If you’ve fixed the issues with your page and you still see the “page indexed without content” warning status, you can ask Google to recrawl your page.
To do this, go to the Google Search Console and select the URL of the page you want to crawl. Then, click on the Request Indexing button.
Google will then recrawl your page and, if everything is working properly, index it properly.
4 Conclusion
In the end, we hope this article helped you learn how to fix page indexed without content warning status in the Google search console and in the Index Status report of Rank Math’s analytics. If you have any doubts or questions related to this matter, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team. We are available 24×7, 365 days a year, and are happy to help you with any issues that you might face.