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Miriam Ellis is a local SEO columnist and consultant. She has been cited as one of the top five most prolific women writers in the SEO industry. Miriam is also an award-winning fine artist and her work can be seen at MiriamEllis.com.
What can you do when some aspect of how Google is handling your digital assets is taking an emotional toll on you? The above screenshot from the Google Search Console (GSC) URL Inspection Tool shows where I’ve been at with the indexing status of the small business website for my fine art prints (MiriamEllis.com) for well over a year since it launched.
I’ve owned the domain almost since the dawn of the web, the content is all original and very thorough, including good product content and an active on-site blog, the images are high quality, and the site structure is very basic. At this point, there are about 100 modestly-optimized pages on the site, and to date, Google simply won’t index over 40% of them. The chief reason given is that they have either been crawled or discovered, but not indexed:
Part of me feels absurd having feelings of disappointment about what the programs we call “bots” are doing. But, on the other hand, I’m looking at this scenario as a chance to develop more empathy with others whose businesses are being impacted by mysterious behaviors on Google’s part. So, today’s column is a bit different; this isn’t a technical deep dive, but rather, a resource for recognizing and coping with the difficult emotions sparked by experiencing problems with search, plus some tips for organizing your response to this challenge.
Let’s start by comforting one another. Whether it’s your Google Business Profile being outranked by spam listings Google won’t take down despite your reports, fake negative reviews you can’t get them to remove, or a problem like mine of nearly half your site being unindexed – and therefore invisible to searchers despite your best efforts to offer a high quality experience – you may feel reticent to voice the feelings these problems are causing you.
You may feel embarrassed that Google, for some unknown reason, doesn’t seem to “like” your business. Like many people, you may have a hard time asking others for help in trying to understand what the problem is. You may feel a heavy feeling in your chest from being let down or be sincerely worried that your business will fail unless Google resolves specific issues. Whatever your emotions are, they are legitimate because:
I’ve spent thousands of hours researching, writing, and painting, and have made a financial investment in my physical materials (paint, canvas, etc.) and my digital assets (domain, hosting, printing, shipping). You know all of the resources of time and money you are putting into your business and they are considerable. Of course you are disappointed if Google is not responding with more vigor to your efforts.
For me, that’s my work as an artist, and the deep love I have of illustrating masterpieces like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings; it’s a subject I’ve been passionate about since childhood. For you, it’s something else. A restaurant created in tribute to your grandmother’s cultural recipes. A non-profit that’s been launched to help with a serious local need. A family business that you’re building to give your children a secure future. You wouldn’t be bringing devotion to your work if your emotions weren’t involved!
While my fine art business is, at this point, a sideline to my work in local search, it may well be that you are counting on your business to keep you and your loved ones housed, clothed, and fed. You may also be employing your neighbors, who are likewise dependent on the business being profitable. It’s impossible to take a laid back approach to whether you are able to meet the high cost of living – of course you have very strong feelings about whether or not search is helping you meet your financial goals.
I’m not generating “art” with AI, and you’re not finding ways to shortcut offering wonderful customer service. Of course you would like Google to reward your adherence to their guidelines and good business practices, and of course it’s frustrating to see less ethical entities thriving in Google’s results.
The above illustration depicts a scene in which Frodo Baggins rescues his elderly relative, Lobelia, from a dark cell she’s been put in by ruffians. All the hobbits cheer her release. When we experience a problem with Google, we may be longing for a release of this kind from our troubles so that our business can thrive. It might be therapeutic to name the stresses we are feeling about Google, and resolve to remain hopeful that there could be better days ahead.
Even the best SEO in the world can run into Google problems they don’t know how to resolve, due to the secrecy which surrounds the search engine’s algorithms and many of its operations. There is also Google’s sometimes-bewildering lack of enforcement of its own policies in regards to spam and low-quality content. We’ve built so much of the web and daily life around what is essentially a black box. Whether or not that’s been a wise societal move, it’s where we’re at, and thanks to the online world, opportunities exist for us to connect with the communities we hope to serve.
Fortunately, there are many Google-related issues that can be resolved with an appropriate amount of troubleshooting, but it may take hiring experts to achieve resolution. In the above painting, only an expert like Elrond knows how to read the secret letters on the map. If you can’t budget to hire a pro (or a half-elf) at the moment, the SEO community has published countless free guides to technical troubleshooting and Google has its own help resources that may hold the key to resolving your issue.Â
If you persist, it could well be that you can rescue yourself and your business. But it doesn’t always work out this way.
If you’ve had the courage to name the cause of your Google-induced stress and share it with experts, but resolution remains out of reach, then it’s quite reasonable to be frustrated. I’ve taken my indexing problem to the best experts I know. Like Frodo entering the hallowed halls of Lothlórien, I’ve shown my website to friends at Google, to world-class SEOs, and to the SEO department at my site host (Wix) asking if they can see any reason why Google doesn’t “like” nearly half of my site.
Maybe we’ve all overlooked something and a reader of this piece will say, “It’s obvious that X is the problem”, but the best answer I’ve been able to come away with from all this is that many websites are experiencing more indexing problems than they used to. This certainly jibes with my experience. I never saw an indexing issue like this when I was building websites for clients back in the early days of search. I built simple websites and Google indexed them. It was all fairly stress-free. But I’ve now heard from multiple SEOs that the reality of today is that Google may discover and crawl pages but not index them, for no evident reason.Â
I suspect I might be able to overcome the problem in time with improved user behavior signals and, perhaps, earning links. Perhaps schema might improve my offering in terms of entity SEO? But for now, Google and I are at an indexing impasse, and if your troubleshooting efforts have also come to naught, you have a decision to make.
While I’m not advising you to give up on your Google problem ever improving, if you’re stuck at a dead end with them at the moment, it could be the right time to remind yourself that the search giant is not the only game in town. The web is a bit like a hobbit garden, with tons of different plants growing in it. If you’ve got potato blight, the chard may still be doing fine.
Local search problems are particularly painful, because Google has become so integrated into local business discovery that it’s sometimes mistaken for a public utility (it is not a public utility!). Being absent from Google’s local packs, Maps, and finders can threaten the very existence of small local businesses, and some of my fellow local SEOs will remember the pre-Valentine’s Day Google fiasco of many years back that caused florists to have to lay off staff after business ground to a halt at the industry’s most important time of the year. All of Google’s SERPs impact real people’s livelihoods, but this is especially clear and poignant when it comes to local SERPs.
If an unresolved Google problem is disconnecting you from the community you hope to serve, you may be able to make up some of the difference by finding other ways to reconnect. In extreme cases, paying for visibility may be necessary, via Google Ads or Local Service Ads, but there are other options, including:
For many of these alternatives to Google, the necessary ingredient is authenticity. You have to really love what you do for work, and be eager to connect with others over shared interest. For my part, I spend a lot of time on social platforms. I could talk about Tolkien for days on end and genuinely value the chance to “nerd out” with others on this niche topic. I’ve been very fortunate to earn the patronage of lovely people in the Tolkien community, with most of my sales resulting from social media to date. It’s this experience that makes me hopeful that there may be a non-Google avenue open to your business.
If there’s one thing I would urge you not to do in response to a Google-based problem, it would be taking your frustration out on the company’s public employees. I’ve been disturbed by instances of incivility of this kind. It won’t help matters or help you make your case, but it will hurt fellow human beings who have about as much control over Google’s operations as you do. Yes, voice your problems so Google knows about them. Sometimes, bringing media attention to a serious Google problem can result in their taking action and some issues may even require you to seek legal counsel. But please, don’t lose your cool and be rude to Google reps. It’s unprofessional and unkind and we all have to live on the internet we make.
I wrote this rather personal column because I recognized that part of me feels very silly getting emotional over bots. The more I thought about my feelings, the more it became clear that, for many years, working on the web had caused me to develop a need for affirmation from Google that I was getting things right. It became a given step in the development process, knowing that they were responding to my work with crawling, indexation, and decent visibility in their SERPs. My art site’s indexation woes have left me feeling unaffirmed, and that’s why my emotions are involved.
Given this, it could be that an unmet need is for the fellowship you expected to get from Google but have yet to receive. You want someone to say, “This is a worthy business idea and you are doing a good job.”
Understanding this, the question arises of who you’d love to have at your table. Who makes you feel affirmed in real life that your efforts to contribute to society have value? Tolkien’s hobbits support one another on their quest. Who supports you?
I’m fortunate to have family and friends in my corner who believe in my dreams. And I’ve actively sought connection with others in my niche, attending and lecturing at conferences, using Patreon to support the work of peers, and listening to the stories of others with great interest. In 2025, my ideal publisher will be bringing out an art book with me, and all these experiences are helping to fill the emotional gap I’m in with Google.
For your business idea, perhaps you could:
My hope is that you will find yourself at a creative table surrounded by people who are glad to be working alongside you towards a shared goal. We all need encouragement, and I hope you’ve gotten some today from this article, and that, with a little emotional honesty, more support and success is within reach. Wishing you good luck in your worthy venture!
