If you’re the owner of a website, you probably know how important it is to be indexed by search engines.
Search engine indexing helps your website appear in search results, which can drive traffic to your site and increase your visibility.
However, if your website is not being indexed correctly, it can have a significant impact on your website’s visibility and traffic.
My actions
I will note down my actions here. Step by step. Until it is fixed. This is so anyone can follow the same steps and get positive results.
| Timeline | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 22-04-2023 | Sent a Tweet to Microsoft Teams | No reaction |
| 22-04-2023 | Created a post on DuckDuckGo Reddit | No result |
| 22-04-2023 | Created this post on Cyberwarzone | – |
| 23-04-2023 | Created support ticket on Microsoft community page | Reaction, but no valid answer. |
| 23-04-2023 | Created Bing Webmaster Support ticket – Selected ‘cyberwarzone.com’ – Selected ‘indexing issue’ – Followed the steps in the form | TBD |
| 23-04-2023 | Sent a private message to the DuckDuckGo team on Twitter | TBD |
| 24-04-2023 | Sent email to the Bing Webmaster Tools Support Team via bwtsupport [at] microsoft.com | TBD |
| 24-04-2023 | Identified Weird Changes in the Bing URL submission function | – |
| 24-04-2023 | Pinged the MSFT Bing team on Twitter | TBD |
| 24-04-2023 | Disabled the IndexNow BETA module in CloudFlare | No random URLs being submitted to Indexing Systems |
| – | Issue still open |
Cyberwarzone
This is the issue that I’ve been facing with my website, Cyberwarzone.com. Despite being around for over 13 years, my website is not being indexed properly by search engines like DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo.
This means that when people search for content related to my website, they are unlikely to find it in the search results of these search engines.
The only search engine that is currently indexing Cyberwarzone correctly is Google. While this is good news, it’s not enough.
Many people rely on search engines other than Google to find information, and if my website is not being indexed properly by these search engines, it’s likely that I’m missing out on potential traffic and visibility.
It is not SEO
I want to make it clear that the issue Cyberwarzone.com is facing with search engine indexing is not an SEO issue.
Search engine optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website’s content and structure to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages.
While SEO can play a role in search engine indexing, it’s not the sole factor at play.
In this case, the issue appears to be with search engines like DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yahoo not properly indexing Cyberwarzone.com, despite the website being optimized for SEO.
It’s possible that there may be technical or other reasons why the website is not being indexed by these search engines.
Tools in place
| Tool | Configured correctly |
|---|---|
| Google Webmaster | Yes |
| Bing Webmaster | Yes |
| Cloudflare IndexNow | Yes |
| Sitemaps | Yes |
| Robots.txt | Yes |
| Blacklist test | No blacklist hits |
| Virustotal check | No malware hits |
DuckDuckGo Reddit
The users on the DuckDuckGo (DDG) reddit also explained that they are unable to view the cyberwarzone.com domain in the DuckDuckGo search results.
Weird changes
Found on: 24-04-2023
While I was navigating the Bing webmaster console, I noticed that the amount of URLs which I can submit changed from 10K to only 10 URLs on a daily basis.
The previous amount
New amount
Disabled IndexNow in CloudFlare
I have disabled the Crawler hints (IndexNow) BETA function in Cloudflare after reading this post.
I noticed the Bing webmaster dashboard showed URLs which should not be queried (as also made clear in the Robots.txt).
How to do this
- Navigate to: https://dash.cloudflare.com/
- Click on Caching
- Click on Configurations
- Search for “Crawler Hints” and disable (or enable)
Transparency
This is a common issue faced by many website owners, where their websites suddenly stop being indexed by certain search engines, despite being around for years and being optimized for SEO.
It’s worth noting that even high-ranking websites have been known to suddenly disappear from search engine results pages due to various reasons.
Some examples of other sites having the same issue:
- https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2022/03/25/my-website-disappeared-from-bing-and-duckduckgo/
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/msn_microsoft_search/5052150.htm
- https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-bing/help-why-my-site-has-been-removed-from-bing-s-search-results/m-p/2906441
Your assistance
If you have any tips or feedback on how to solve the issue of search engine indexing faced by Cyberwarzone.com, we’d love to hear from you. As a website owner, it’s always helpful to receive feedback and suggestions from others in the industry.
If you’ve faced a similar issue with your own website or have experience with search engine indexing, we encourage you to leave a comment below and share your thoughts. Your insights and advice could be invaluable in helping us find a solution to this problem.