Possible problem with new site (GWT no queries/very low index vs. submitted)

[jameswesleyhunt]

Hi everyone,

I recently launched a new website for a small business loan company in the Dallas area. The site has been live for roughly a month and a half. I submitted everything to GWT as usual, including my sitemap. I am not sure what's going on with the site, as there is no activity from GWT in the impressions or queries. The submit vs. index is 24/3 (and hasn't moved). Also the queries graph on the overview stops at 3/18/2015... On another note, when I go to Crawl > Sitemaps, it shows that there were pages indexed during the month of march and then on April 3 it drops from 17 to 2 and never increases.

Google says there are no errors or issues found, but I feel like there's something wrong. When I do site:, my URLs do pop up which makes me believe there's just a problem with my GWT. With that being said, I'm not happy THINKING there's something wrong. I need to actually know what the problem is.

The only thing I can think of that I have done is purchase SSL for the site, but when I search what pages are indexed using www. it shows all the HTTPS URLS, so that would tell me that the site is getting indexed without a problem?

Does anyone have a clue as to what might be happening? I will attach some screen shots so that you can get a better idea...

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[jameswesleyhunt]

UPDATE:

Ooohkay, got an update. So I mentioned that I purchased SSL for the site. I just added the https://www. version to GWT and now it's giving me more updated information. I didn't realize that the https version was different. Now my question though is how is this affecting the rest of my website? Does anyone have experience managing https vs http pages?

Also, does Moz automatically track all versions of the domain or do I need to create a new campaign with the HTTPS version?

[jameswesleyhunt]

Sorry to keep responding to my own problem but I think I just fixed the issue... I believe the entire problem was stemming from the fact that my HTTPS was setup incorrectly.

1. I added the HTTPS version of my site to GWT.

2. I changed my urls in WordPress to reflect HTTPS not http.

3. This created a problem with my redirection. Typing in a naked URL was no longer redirecting to https:// or www.

4. I changed my .htaccess file to force HTTPS.

Now I believe the entire problem is fixed. I just have to wait and see how my tools reflect the changes and hopefully I did everything correctly.

[RyanPurkey]

Good work James! And nice outline of your steps involved. This will be an asset for people experiencing similar issues I'm sure. Cheers!

[LinkWheelOldSchool]

Just like you said: add https version (with and without www) to gwt, change the wp main url, use the ssl redirect plugin or manage the redirect via htaccess and finally wait a few days to see the changes.

[edward-may]

Hi James, great question!

Ryan you hit that on the nail lol

I'm having this same issue currently!  I have ssl on all 3 domains and realise I was adding the http version and not the https version.  I have since updated it now, how long did you take for you to receive the updated information after you made the adjustments?

[edward-may]

Thanks Rick, you just answered my question on how long it will take to update!