How I Fixed DNS Errors, Indexing Issues, and Structured Data Problems After Launching My Hugo Blog

When I launched my blog, I thought the hardest part was over. I had already written about how I built my first blog using Hugo and Netlify. But once it went live, I quickly discovered that the real challenge was keeping everything working smoothly.

In this post, I’ll share three real problems I faced (and fixed):

1. DNS setup error – site not reachable after adding a custom domain.
2. Google Search Console “Crawled – not indexed” issue.
3. Unparsable structured data error in Google Search Console.

Problem #1: How I Fixed “This Site Can’t Be Reached” (DNS Error After Adding a Domain)

After connecting my shiny new domain, I tried visiting my site and got this dreaded message:

This site can’t be reached.

I assumed it was just DNS propagation and waited. Hours turned into days, and nothing changed. My blog felt invisible.

The Cause

The issue was my DNS records in Namecheap. My setup looked like this:

• A Record

  • @ → 75.2.60.5
  • @ → 99.83.190.102

• CNAME Record

  • www → devview.netlify.app.

• TXT Record

  • Google site verification

The problem? Two A records for the root domain (@). DNS didn’t know which one to use, so my site broke.

The Fix

I deleted the extra A record and kept just one:

A Record @ 75.2.60.5

The CNAME and TXT records stayed the same.

After a few hours, my site worked perfectly on the new domain.

✅ Lesson learned: Always double-check DNS. One wrong record can make your site unreachable.

Problem #2: Fixing Google Search Console “Crawled – Not Indexed”

When I checked Google Search Console, I noticed three key pages—Contact, About, and Privacy Policy—were marked as:

Crawled – not indexed

Google had seen the pages but decided not to include them in search results. That was frustrating.

Why It Happened

Pages like Contact or Privacy are often too thin or generic. Mine didn’t offer much, so Google didn’t see them as valuable enough to index.

The Fix

I improved each page to make them more useful.

1. Privacy Policy: Added a Plain-English Summary

Instead of only legal text, I added a simple intro with bullet points:

• We only collect what’s necessary (comments, analytics).
• We don’t sell user data.
• You can request to see or delete your data anytime.
• We use trusted third-party tools like Google Analytics and Utterances.

This gave visitors something meaningful right at the top.

2. Internal Links to the Contact Page

Inside the Privacy Policy, I added links to the Contact page:

• In the intro: “If you have any questions, reach out here.”
• In the “Your Rights” section: “To exercise these rights, contact us.”

This improved site structure and helped Google connect the pages.

3. About Page: Added Structured Data

I added AboutPage schema in JSON-LD:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "AboutPage",
  "mainEntity": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Godfrey O. Omoregie",
    "jobTitle": "Software Developer & Technical Blogger",
    "url": "https://devviews.com/about",
    "image": "https://devviews.com/images/author.webp",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://github.com/gootec82",
      "https://x.com/godfreycode1"
    ],
    "description": "Software Developer, Technical Blogger and Problem Solver."
  },
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "DevViews",
    "url": "https://devviews.com",
    "logo": "https://devviews.com/images/logo.png"
  }
}

A few weeks later, Google indexed all three pages.

✅ Lesson learned: Even “boring” pages deserve effort. Write them for humans, not just checkboxes.

Problem #3: Solving Google Search Console “Unparsable Structured Data” Error

Just as things were running smoothly, I woke up to an email:

Unparsable structured data issues detected.

I immediately thought: Uh oh, did I break SEO completely?

The Cause

Google flagged my About page’s structured data because of a trailing comma in the JSON.

Here’s the broken code:

“sameAs”: [ “https://github.com/gootec82”, “https://x.com/godfreycode1”, // ← Trailing comma ],

That one comma made the entire block invalid.

The Fix

I removed the comma:

“sameAs”: [ “https://github.com/gootec82”, “https://x.com/godfreycode1” ]

Then I tested the page in Google’s Rich Results Test, and everything passed.

✅ Lesson learned: JSON doesn’t allow trailing commas. Always validate before you publish.

Final Thoughts: Blogging is Debugging Too

Here’s what these issues taught me:

DNS mistakes can bring down your entire site.

Thin content won’t get indexed—make every page valuable.

A single misplaced character in JSON can break structured data.

Running a blog as a developer is more than writing posts. It’s debugging your own platform and learning from every hiccup.

If you’re just starting out, check out how I built my first blog for the setup details. Then keep this post handy for when the real-world problems show up.

Blogging is part writing, part coding, part troubleshooting. And honestly? That’s the fun of it.