Hi Kalena,
I just checked my Google Search Console and under Crawl, Fetch as Google I see my site status is showing as redirected, with a yellow sign beside it!
What does that mean and how can I fix it, please?
Regards
Zara
————————————-
Hi Zara
First up, don’t panic. The *Fetch as Google* tool simply tries to imitate what Googlebot sees when it crawls your site code. It doesn’t mean that Google can’t index your site. If you are still seeing data in the Search Console relating to your site status, all is well. If there were major indexing issues, you would see errors in the Crawl Errors and Site Appearance categories.
As for WHY you are seeing a redirect status, without knowing your site URL, I can only guess. But I’m confident it will be one of these reasons:
1) Domain canonicalization: Does your site load using both http:// and http://www. or does one version redirect to the other? Have you set a preferred domain in Google Search Console? To do this you need to set up views for both versions in Google Search Console and then set your preference. After you’ve done that, depending on which domain version you open within the Console, the *Fetch as Google* tool will show a different status.
1) Fetch as Google results for http://www.searchenginecollege.com
2) Fetch as Google results for http://searchenginecollege.com
For example, to avoid duplicate content issues in Google, I have set a) http://www.searchenginecollege.com as my preferred domain in my Search Console, but I also have a Console view for b) http://searchenginecollege.com. On the server side, I have set the non www version to redirect to the www version. This is known by several names, including URL redirecting, domain masking, piggy-backing and parking. If I fetch a) as Google, I see the status as shown in the first image. If I fetch b) as Google, I see the yellow *redirected* status as shown in the second image.
This is likely what you’re seeing and it simply means you have set up your domain redirect correctly. Learn more about domain canonicalization and how to set your preferred domain.
2) 301 or 302 redirects: Have you recently switched domains? Although Googlebot follows redirects, the *Fetch as Google* tool does not. So if your site was originally set up in the Google Search Console as one domain e.g. http://www.siteA.com but has now moved to http://www.siteB.com and you set up a 301 or 302 redirect server side, then if you are looking at the original site view in the Console, it will show up as redirected in the crawl tool. You can inspect the HTTP response on the fetch details page to see the redirect details. Learn how to do this.
3) Moving to SSL: If you have recently updated your site from http:// to https:// and you’re seeing *redirected* in the crawl status, you may have the same domain canonicalization issue as 1). So you need to set up a view for the https:// version of your site in Google Search Console. More info on SSL issues here and here.
Hope this helps!
——————————————————————-
Like to teach yourself digital marketing online? Start here.
