Changed preferred domain, sitemap de-indexing. Help!

  • Hello,

    So I decided it would be good to set a preferred domain name on my site in google webmaster tools. I changed it this week so that the non-www version of smellslikeinfinitesadness.com would be the preferred versions.

    It looks like everything is redirecting, but I noticed that on the non www domain name in google webmaster tools it said to submit a site map. Now I had one on the https://www.version (https://www.smellslikeinfinitesadness.com/sitemap.xml) , and I had all but 5 pages of my 225 pages indexed. But if you clicked on the sitemap it was a blank document. But if you removed the www from the sitemap name it looked fine.

    I thought I read it was okay to submit multiple site maps anyways so I submitted a new one to my preferred domain https://smellslikeinfinitesadness.com/sitemap.xml

    Well I woke up this morning to see that only 75 of my 225 pages are now indexed on my new sitemap and my old sitemap seems to have disappeared altogether.

    So, my question is, am I in trouble? Will I start to disappear from google search results? Will my backlinks go away and will my pagerank drop?

    Or is this just a normal process and things will index properly?

    I’ve worked so hard on my blog the past year and a half, and now I’m getting decent traffic, building back links and showing well in google search. To think I may have to start from 0 because of something stupid I did makes me sick. Perhaps I should’ve just left it alone since I’m so technically ignorant.

    Sorry for the long post, but any help would be much appreciated.

    Thanks!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • am I in trouble? Will I start to disappear from google search results? Will my backlinks go away and will my pagerank drop?

    Generally, these are questions that can only be answered by Google – not WordPress.
    However, as your domain is a non-www version and you have opted it as your preferred domain, and also because you have submitted your sitemap according to your preferred domain, you can expect better results in the course of time. Also make sure that you keep track of errors reported at your Webmaster Tools and keep on making corrections whenever required.

    Thread Starter SLIS

    (@slis)

    Krishna,

    Thanks for your reply. I have submitted the same question to google, but given I use wordpress I didn’t know if that would make any difference in what answer I might receive.

    I’m starting to wish I didn’t mess with it. I guess what I don’t understand is if I have pages dropped out of the index, does that mean they aren’t searchable through google search engine, or is that unrelated? Can this cause backlinks and page rank to disappear or is that unrelated as well?

    Say this post was previously indexed by google: https://smellslikeinfinitesadness.com/nine-inch-nails-announce-new-album/

    and let’s say now it’s not; does that mean it won’t show in search results anymore?

    I’m guessing is I’d just stuck to the www version this wouldn’t be happening. So basically I feel like a moron and wish I understood this better. Does that make any sense or am I way off base?

    Here are your Google indexed URLs.

    As a general advice: Spend some more time at your Google webmaster tools account. You will find problems and solutions there itself. Additionally use the help links there.

    For indexing, ranking, etc. Google does not use separate parameters for WordPress sites and other sites. I have WordPress sites, sites hosted on Google’s own Blogger, and also an old html site that I hand-coded seven years ago. From a general perspective, I do not find much difference in indexing and ranking for these sites. Wherever I followed Google’s guidelines, I ranked better. Where I do not, I did not do things right. So I strongly recommend that you study and follow the Google guidelines. And don’t expect your site/ niche keywords to appear on the top of the first page of SERPs. Think of your competitors, how well they may be marketing themselves and spending on SEO and other aspects. And also see how many million search results are there for each of your keywords. If everyone wants to be on the top, can it be possible?

    Thread Starter SLIS

    (@slis)

    Krishna,

    Thanks so much for your insight. My problem is there’s so much to read that I get overwhelmed with all the details, and it all seems like greek to me at times since I’m not very technically proficient.

    I was just concerned that by my site map changing that would mean I’m getting deindexed from google or losing my search engine status. I’m still building an audience but don’t want to lose the ground I’ve made.

    I just wish I’d done the www as preferred, might have been easier that way, but I read that non www was the way to go for pop-culture sites.

    Guess I’ll just keep an eye on the index status and hopefully it’ll be back to normal soon.

    Thank you!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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