Does Google Not Index Dynamic Pages Differentiated by URL Strings?

General Web Dev
1

I recently launched a product comparison script at http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/ that contains perhaps 50 pages, each differentiated by a URL string like so:

e.g. http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/?vs=watch
e.g. http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/?vs=watch&vs=gearS
e.g. http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/?vs=watch&vs=surge&vs=gWatchR&vs=pebble&vs=gearS

However, Google seems to be refusing to index these pages. It will index only http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/ See here: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=site:wearabletechforums.com/compare/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I even tried using Webmaster Tools to direct a URL fetch. Does Google not index dynamic pages like this? And do I need to change these URLs so that Google will see they are different pages?

Thanks.

2

This line in the head of your code tells Google to index only the URL you see in the search results:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/" />

You should remove that line if you want the different URLs indexed separately.

3

Ah, interesting. Thank you. I’ll look into that.

4

Hm. I removed the tag from that page, but I still can’t seem to get Google to index it. Is there any other reason this may be happening?

See http://wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/?vs=watch&vs=surge&vs=gWatchR&vs=pebble&vs=gearS

5

It will probably take time. But is there a specific link to such URLs on the site? In other words, are they presented somewhere as a specific page, or are they just created on the fly and lost as soon as the page is closed?

6

I don’t believe it should take time if I request Google to fetch the pages, using Webmaster Tools. In any case, yes, they are presented. One of the moderators seems to have disabled all my links, but if you’ll go to any of those pages, you’ll see there are quite a few links on the right sidbear.

7

Did you try Google Webmaster Tools → Crawl → Fetch as Google?

After retrieving your web page there is an option to “Submit to index”.

8

I’m not sure, but I would be surprised if Google jumps to attention just because you ask it to. (Presumably the crawlers still have to do their work, and probably have a lot of work to do.) Even submitting a new site seems to take time, in my experience. And being new listings, the pages are likely to be a long way down the list of results.

1 Like
9

The first page finally got indexed. Typically Google has been very responsive to a request to fetch the URL. Not sure why it hasn’t been this time, but in any case, it looks like the fix worked. Thanks!

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=site:wearabletechforums.com/compare/specs/&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

10

Seems to me that less than 24 hours is very responsive.

11

When a fetch request is run via Webmaster Tools, Google actually fetches the URLs immediately and often lists the pages within minutes, or even seconds.

12

But bear in mind that Google does not guarantee to index every page.

Crawling and indexing are processes which can take some time and which rely on many factors. In general, we cannot make predictions or guarantees about when or if your URLs will be crawled or indexed.

13

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