If you have a new domain, only the main page shows up on Google search results
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My best guess (and to be clear, this is a guess): Google decided they could no longer effectively identify and swat away SEO slop, and figured that just massively nerfing brand new domains was their next best option.
Subdomains of existing domains are totally fine
Since this Google issue started, we’ve also launched a number of wikis on subdomains of an existing, established domain (wiki.leagueoflegends.com, wiki.warframe.com, hypixelskyblock.minecraft.wiki). Every single one of these has been immediately successful for getting articles other than the main page indexed on Google.
It doesn’t even need to be a popular domain! overwatch.weirdgloop.org, which launched just 7 days ago, is already doing better on page-indexing than any of the wikis currently in Google Jail.
I’ve always said that the only legitimately hard part about moving your wiki off Fandom is that you have to wage a years-long Google war against the zombified corpse left over on Fandom. When you’ve got the game’s community on your side and you’re not dealing with the new-domain issues, this is genuinely not that hard…
…but when your wiki is simply not able to get its pages to show up because of this Google Jail, that doesn’t matter. You’re not going to get the majority of readers, which to me is what determines the success or failure of a move from Fandom.
There’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, though - based on our experiments so far, it seems like once we establish these new wikis fairly well on Google, it should be safe to move them off weirdgloop.org back to whatever the appropriate name was, while keeping the existing Google juice that the subdomain picked up. I’m hoping that in 6 months or so we can just 301 redirect overwatch.weirdgloop.org to overwatch.wiki, use Google’s change of address tool, and put these wikis to where they should have been in the first place.
I don't think this has anything to do with wikis at all. Just the realities of SEO in 2026. Essentially, any new website claiming to have tons of information about a topic (like a recent video...
I don't think this has anything to do with wikis at all. Just the realities of SEO in 2026.
Essentially, any new website claiming to have tons of information about a topic (like a recent video game) are indistinguishable from content mills. Those sites that fabricate low-quality or even false information, and try and lure people in to view ads. Google has made a number of algorithm updates to try to stop these sites from ranking.
They need to prove the domains are legitimate through other signals. Traditional link building strategies still work. Reach out to sources on the topic (like the official dev site, fan sites, whatever), and see if they'll give you a link. Don't be spammy, obviously. Links should be legitimate and relevant.
Or just let it happen over time. Once it crosses a certain threshold, they escape the "jail" they're describing.
There's a few more direct approaches they can take. Using a subdomain of an established site and then later redirecting should work fine, as they suggested. 301s transfer a lot of link juice, and I would assume act as a very strong signal to a new domain's authority.
All the usual stuff applies, too. If you purchased your domain a week before launching the site, it's going to be an uphill battle. You need to establish a presence before expecting search traffic to follow. Also, if your website is 80% content overlap with existing Fandom articles, there'll be heavy duplicate content penalties. Doing some significant article cleanup will likely benefit you, and your readers.
I don't think this has anything to do with wikis at all. Just the realities of SEO in 2026.
Essentially, any new website claiming to have tons of information about a topic (like a recent video game) are indistinguishable from content mills. Those sites that fabricate low-quality or even false information, and try and lure people in to view ads. Google has made a number of algorithm updates to try to stop these sites from ranking.
They need to prove the domains are legitimate through other signals. Traditional link building strategies still work. Reach out to sources on the topic (like the official dev site, fan sites, whatever), and see if they'll give you a link. Don't be spammy, obviously. Links should be legitimate and relevant.
Or just let it happen over time. Once it crosses a certain threshold, they escape the "jail" they're describing.
There's a few more direct approaches they can take. Using a subdomain of an established site and then later redirecting should work fine, as they suggested. 301s transfer a lot of link juice, and I would assume act as a very strong signal to a new domain's authority.
All the usual stuff applies, too. If you purchased your domain a week before launching the site, it's going to be an uphill battle. You need to establish a presence before expecting search traffic to follow. Also, if your website is 80% content overlap with existing Fandom articles, there'll be heavy duplicate content penalties. Doing some significant article cleanup will likely benefit you, and your readers.