Google cannot locate my GitHub repositories - Google Site Verification fails

Question

I created a GitHub site last September using a Windows 10 laptop. Since then I have created five repositories. Google has never been able to locate any of them. A week ago I created a GitHub Page for the main repo but Google has not been able to locate it yet either. Microsoft Edge/Bing can locate the repository.

I provided links to the main repo and its GitHub Page in this post. Then harrymc suggested in a comment that I change the name of the repo. I have done that.

The original links (which might not work anymore) were:

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/Tutorial_for_Running_a_Large_Number_of_R_files_using_Amazon_Web_Services

https://icterusgalbula.github.io/Tutorial_for_Running_a_Large_Number_of_R_files_using_Amazon_Web_Services

Today I recreated the repo and GitHub Page after harrymc's comment to:

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/RAWStutorial

https://icterusgalbula.github.io/RAWStutorial/

and renamed the original repo and GitHub Page to:

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/Tutorial-for-Running-a-Large-Number-of-R-files-using-Amazon-Web-Services

https://icterusgalbula.github.io/Tutorial-for-Running-a-Large-Number-of-R-files-using-Amazon-Web-Services/

For months I tried adding a Google Site Verification file downloaded from Google Search Console and pushed to the main repo of interest.

https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome

Mostly I tried using the original url for the main branch of the GitHub tutorial repo in Google Search Console (under URL prefix). The original link, which might not work anymore after following harrymc's suggestion today, was:

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/Tutorial_for_Running_a_Large_Number_of_R_files_using_Amazon_Web_Services/tree/main

The new URL's as of this morning are:

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/Tutorial-for-Running-a-Large-Number-of-R-files-using-Amazon-Web-Services/tree/main

and

https://github.com/IcterusGalbula/RAWStutorial/tree/main

Google Search Console returned this error message when I clicked the Verify button after uploading the verification file to the main branch of my original GitHub tutorial repo. I have not tried this process after creating the new repo with the shorter name and renaming the original repo this morning:

Verification method: HTML file

Failure reason: Your verification file has the wrong content. Are you using the verification file that you downloaded here?

Please fix your implementation and reverify, or use another verification method.

The content of the Google Site Verification file is:

 google-site-verification: google229f9162496d16ab.html

I have done everything I can think of to resolve this issue including working through ~15 hours of video in multiple Git and Github courses on Udemy, watching YouTube videos, searching the internet and adding a link to my GitHub repository multiple places on the internet including my Stack Exchange profile.

Answers to this StackOverflow post seem to be to try using Google Search Console and the question has been closed. That approach is not working for me as described above:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26199705/github-repository-not-listing-in-google-search

I also have looked at a similar post on GitHub Community:

https://github.community/t/cant-see-my-github-page-on-google/10947

and asked for help myself on that forum.

Thank you for any suggestions and assistance 1.) enabling Google to find and list my GitHub repos and/or my GitHub Page in search results and 2.) verifying my GitHub repository.

Answer 1

I have made partial progress. Google has verified my GitHub Page and is in the process of indexing that page. I have not been able to verify my GitHub repository. However, my GitHub Page links to my GitHub repository. So, after Google finishes indexing my GitHub Page maybe Google will be able to list both the page and the repository in search results. I will not know for maybe another week.

Below are the steps I used to verify my GitHub Page based on this post by klues:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26199705/github-repository-not-listing-in-google-search

1. Go to Google Search Console

https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome

I made sure I was using the same Gmail account to log into both GitHub and Google Search Console.

2. Paste the URL of your GitHub Page into the URL Prefix box. For example, I used:

https://icterusgalbula.github.io/RAWStutorial/

This GitHub Page is referred to as a property.

3. Click Continue

4. Scroll down to the HTML tag verification method section and copy the meta tag displayed by clicking the word COPY

5. Paste that text into your index.html file in your GitHub repository. Bracket that text between <head> and </head>. The actual html code was not displayed here when I tried. My index.html file is in the gh-pages branch of my GitHub repository.

6. Commit the changes made in your index.html file (i.e., update your repository).

7. Click the word VERIFY on the Google Search Console screen

8. Hopefully Google Search Console will verify your GitHub Page site. My site was verified.

9. Click GO TO PROPERTY

10. You must wait approximately 48 hours after which a different Google Search Console screen will appear with a search bar at the top.

11. Paste the URL of the GitHub Page into that search bar at the top of the new Google Search Console screen. However, this time use a slightly different version of the URL than was used in Step 2. This time add index.html to the end of the URL:

https://icterusgalbula.github.io/RAWStutorial/index.html

12. Click Enter

13. Request Indexing

14. Wait for Google to index the GitHub Page. I do not know how long this will take but I guess it could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Here is a screenshot of the current state of my Google Search Console display while I wait for Google to index my GitHub Page. Note the checkmark next to Indexing requested:

I will update this post after the indexing of the GitHub Page is completed (or fails).

EDIT: August 19, 2021

Google still is not able to locate my GitHub page. The following screenshot shows that Google Search Console Coverage is still processing data ~ one month after creating this post.

Answer 2

Your project is also successfully found by DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. I would guess that this is a search engine crawler problem, perhaps to do with your title being one very long word.

My advice was to replace the underscores with space, which the poster did, and then let the search engines time to crawl it.