Google Not Indexing an Article

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   eugbugposted 4 years ago

   I have an article called "Equation of a Parabola: Directrix and Focus and How to Find Roots of Quadratic Equations"
   The article doesn't turn up in SERPs for the first four consecutive words from the title.
   Is this unusual? Originally the "Equation of a Parabola" bit was near the middle of the title, but I moved it to the start, but it doesn't make any difference. According to Ubersuggest, the four words have a SEO difficulty of 12.

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      chef-de-jourposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      That long title perhaps should be cut down, it's a little ambiguous. Could be confusing the algorithm? God forbid.

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         eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         I know, it's a bit of a mouthful. I only changed it a few days ago though when I discovered I wasn't ranking for the parabola bit.

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      RonElFranposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      I did a search for "How to Find Roots of Quadratic Equations" and your article appeared at #5 in the Google search results. So, the article is indexed.

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         eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Hmm, that's odd. Did you use Google Ron? When I do the same search, it doesn't turn up in the first 100 results.

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         1. 100

            chef-de-jourposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            I googled:
            
            Parabola How to find roots of quadratic equations....half way down page 6 (1,660,000)
            
            How to find Roots of a parabola and quadratic equation...not in top 10 pages (1,480,000)
            
            How to find roots of quadratic equations....not in top 10 pages (11,100,000)
            
            How to find roots of quadratic equations directrix and focus....page 1 near top (94,700)
            
            Not sure what to make of these!!!! Best of luck sorting it out. But that last search with directrix and focus added to the title cut the numbers down drastically, and raised your article to near the top.

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               eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

               Ok, it doesn't turn up in the first 200 results for "How to find roots of quadratic equations" on it's own (I set my search to show 100 results per page, and only two pages are available).

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2. 48

   Alvina Martinoposted 4 years ago

   Maybe it takes a little more time...

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      eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      It was published last September.

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         Alvina Martinoposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         
         
         Ahrefs Report

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   eugbugposted 4 years ago

   So I searched for "parabola" and it turns up at position 36 in SERPs, but yet "Equation of a parabola" which is a long tailed keyword set doesn't list the article. "Parabola" has a SEO difficulty of 47 which is moderate so why is it ranking for a more competitive word and not the phrase?

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4. 60

   paradigmsearchposted 4 years ago

   Math articles used to be profitable. I did a search for "Parabola". Sure enough, every single entry on the front page was a website with a math domain name. Not your fault. Welcome to Google.

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      paradigmsearchposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      Update. And the same is applying more and more to other topics these days.

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   lobobrandonposted 4 years ago

   The intent of your article is not really the equation of a parabola, it is to understand it a bit better. Someone searching for parabola would be looking for this information, but someone looking for equation of a parabola would just be looking for the equation. It is not surprising that you rank better for parabola than equation of a parabola.
   
   Don't base things of search difficult, those things usually take into account backlinks and ranking pages, number of competing results, etc. They do not tell you how well you are fulfilling an intent which is something the Google algorithms are getting better and better at figuring out.

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      eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

      So do you think I should work the word understand into the title somehow? Something like "Understanding parabolas" or "How to Understand the Parabola?" The original title (from which the URL originated) was "How to Understand the Equation of a Parabola".

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         PaulGoodman67posted 4 years agoin reply to this

         You seem to be putting everything into the title. I think do your best with the title, then write another version of the title with closely related keywords (but not the same) as your first main header within the article. In this headed section you can give an outline of what you will give/do for the reader in the article.
         
         The HP premium editors took this approach with some of my work and I have generally tried to emulate it ever since. The title is important but then you have to support it. The headers within the article can both bolster the main title and draw in additional traffic in my experience.
         
         Despite the title of this thread, your article is obviously indexed or it wouldn't show at all. How long it takes for an article to take off and get traction I can never quite grasp myself. I have articles that suddenly seem to climb after a year or more for reasons I cannot fathom. The truth is that, to use a sporting analogy, Google is constantly moving the goalposts around anyway, so I think do your best, move on, and come back in six months. That's what I try to do, though it's easy to get a little obsessive I know, if you've put lots of work into research and writing.
         
         That's my two cents' worth anyway.

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            eugbugposted 4 years agoin reply to this

            Ok, thanks, I'll have a go at that. I wish I could emulate the success of my triangle tutorial. The only thing that seems to have which could be different is lots of diagrams so it probably satisfies younger children, right up to high schoolers who can understand more difficult concepts. Plus the diagrams are clear enough with equations that can be understood by non-English speakers.

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               PaulGoodman67posted 4 years agoin reply to this

               I would stick to chasing the keywords/phrases that get at the very least 5,000 views/month, especially if it's not a particularly advertising-friendly subject area. That's if earnings are a priority for you anyway. I did briefly look up some of the keywords/phrases you mentioned, and "Understanding parabolas", for example, didn't seem worth pursuing as a main target. Some of the other parabola phrases seemed better.
               
               I think the main focus should be to firmly target a keyword/phrase that's relevant and gets reasonable searches, build the article around it, including headings - if you are successful, you can always come back later and "spread the net", adding questions at the end of the article that include other (related) keywords/phrases - and then just leave it for months. It's hard to be that "brutal" I know, I can get distracted from the main focus and also find it tempting to tinker, but I believe that this is generally the best approach.

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         lobobrandonposted 4 years agoin reply to this

         Paul gave you a pretty good answer to this already. There's nothing I could add to it. Good luck!

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   eugbugposted 4 years ago

   Ok, thanks everybody, that's plenty to think about. I'll do some experimenting and see how I get on.

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