Removing a Page From Google index
-
We accidentally generated some pages on our site that ended up getting indexed by google. We have corrected the issue on the site and we 404 all of those pages. Should we manually delete the extra pages from Google's index or should we just let Google figure out that they are 404'd? What the best practice here?
-
Thanks Ryan. I fully understand what you are saying and will be careful while making the change.
-
Hi Atul,
Generally speaking I am uncomfortable advising others on specific changes to the .htaccess file. If you make even a slight error while working with the file, your site security can be compromised, not to mention your SEO. There are also many factors to consider such as which mods are enabled on your particular server along with other configuration issues. Lastly, the order in which your code is placed in the file can effect it's operation so it's not like adding a meta tag to the section of an html document.
If you are on managed hosting, my recommendation is to ask your web host to make the change. If you are not on managed hosting, I recommend asking the developer who manages the site to make the change.
If you still insist on making the change yourself, try
Redirect gone /ABC/xyz.html
-
After reading your answer, i searched for methods on how to generate 410 error.
Lets say i want to remove a page named xyz.html.
Which of the following entry in .htaccess is correct
Redirect gone xyz.html
or
Redirect gone /xyz/
If xyz were in a folder named ABC,
would it be correct
Redirect gone /ABC/xyz.html
Thaks
-
Thanks everyone! We are just going to leave it as is. Google will eventually flush it out. Ryan - because of the 90 days we can't remove the URL's. I will need them back sooner than that when we actually put products in those states. Thanks again! helpful....as usual!
-
Remove URL tool will just expedite the inevitable. There is no downside in doing so.
I agree with everything you shared Esko up to this point. Aside from the time spent to remove the page, there is another downside. The URL you remove will not appear in SERPs again for 90 days after being manually removed.
If your URL was mysite.com/blue-widgets then your site will not have another /blue-widgets page listed again for 90 days. I can share it is a headache as an SEO trying to figure out why a page is not being indexed, and later learning I did not ask all the right questions i.e. "Prior to hiring my services, have you or anyone with access to your WMT account used the URL Removal tool within the past 90 days?". That otherwise obscure question now is asked regularly of my clients. Painful lesson.
Also, I wanted to share another helpful link I located from Google: When NOT to use the URL Removal tool.
-
Google will completely drop the page from the index after the next time they crawl it. Using the Remove URLs tool in Google Webmaster Tools will only expedite removal.
Best practice is to 404 (Not Found) or 410 (Gone) the page first of all.
Remove URL tool will just expedite the inevitable. There is no downside in doing so.
-
Should we manually delete the extra pages from Google's index or should we just let Google figure out that they are 404'd? What the best practice here?
The best practice would be to generate a 410 error (GONE) for the pages and Google will remove them from their index fairly quickly.
The next best practice would be to leave the pages as 404s and Google will still remove them from their index but it will take a bit longer.
A 410 is used to inform Google and others the page is definitely gone. A 404 merely states the page is unavailable now. It could be available later.
The removal tool should only be used if it is a major concern for the search result to appear in SERPs. An example would be if confidential information was leaked.
-
I think it's always good to let Google know as they might remove it sooner. But there's no guarantee either way. Though if you can, you should 301 your content to a new/similar page rather than just let it 404.
-
I understand HOW to remove a page. I want to know whether it's better for me to manually remove it or let Google remove it on its own.
-
Remove a page from Google's Index
Use Google Webmaster Tools www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1663419
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Old pages STILL indexed...
Our new website has been live for around 3 months and the URL structure has completely changed. We weren't able to dynamically create 301 redirects for over 5,000 of our products because of how different the URL's were so we've been redirecting them as and when. 3 months on and we're still getting hundreds of 404 errors daily in our Webmaster Tools account. I've checked the server logs and it looks like Bing Bot still seems to want to crawl our old /product/ URL's. Also, if I perform a "site:example.co.uk/product" on Google or Bing - lots of results are still returned, indicating the both still haven't dropped them from their index. Should I ignore the 404 errors and continue to wait for them to drop off or should I just block /product/ in my robots.txt? After 3 months I'd have thought they'd have naturally dropped off by now! I'm half-debating this: User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LiamMcArthur
Disallow: /some-directory-for-all/* User-agent: Bingbot
User-agent: MSNBot
Disallow: /product/ Sitemap: http://www.example.co.uk/sitemap.xml0 -
Webmaster Tools Not Indexing New Pages
Hi there Mozzers, Running into a small issue. After a homepage redesign (from a list of blog posts to a product page), it seems that blog posts are buried on the http://OrangeOctop.us/ site. The latest write-up on "how to beat real madrid in FIFA 15", http://orangeoctop.us/against-real-madrid-fifa-15/ , has yet to be indexed. It would normally take about a day naturally for pages to be indexed or instantly with a manual submission. I have gone into webmaster tools and manually submitted the page for crawls multiple times on multiple devices. Still not showing up in the search results. Can anybody advise?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | orangeoctop.us0 -
Incorrect cached page indexing in Google while correct page indexes intermittently
Hi, we are a South African insurance company. We have a page http://www.miway.co.za/midrivestyle which has a 301 redirect to http://www.miway.co.za/car-insurance. Problem is that the former page is ranking in the index rather than the latter. The latter page does index occasionally in the same position, but rarely. This is primarily for search phrases like "car insurance" and "car insurance quotes". The ranking was knocked down the index with Penquin 2.0. It was not ranking at all but we have managed to recover to 12/13. This abnormally has only been occurring since the recovery. The correct page does index for other search terms like "insurance for car". Your help would be appreciated, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | miway0 -
Google Map embed on Contact Us page
Greetings Mozzers, When doing a website, we generally link a Google Map image of the company to the Google Maps in a new tab. Reading other questions made us wonder. Is it better to do the above or is it more beneficial to SEO to have a Google Map embedded on the website. Which I guess means it links Google to the Business in one way? Thanks for any/all responses.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MonsterWeb280 -
How to remove an entire site from Google?
Hi people, I have a site with around 2.000 urls indexed in google, and 10 subdomains indexed too, which I want to remove entirely, to set up a new web. Which is the best way to do it? Regards!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoExpertos0 -
Remove Landing Pages?
Howdy Guys, I've just been listening to the latest edition of whiteboard Friday regarding the over-optimization penalty. I'm just wondering if we should remove alot of make specifc landing pages... For instance we have a landing pages for our top 20 cars... For instance "bmw keyword" or "audi keyword" What do you guys think? remove them and 301 the pages to the homepage? Thanks, Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Indexation of content from internal pages (registration) by Google
Hello, we are having quite a big amount of content on internal pages which can only be accessed as a registered member. What are the different options the get this content indexed by Google? In certain cases we might be able to show a preview to visitors. In other cases this is not possible for legal reasons. Somebody told me that there is an option to send the content of pages directly to google for indexation. Unfortunately he couldn't give me more details. I only know that this possible for URLs (sitemap). Is there really a possibility to do this for the entire content of a page without giving google access to crawl this page? Thanks Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guitarslinger0 -
Should I index tag pages?
Should I exclude the tag pages? Or should I go ahead and keep them indexed? Is there a general opinion on this topic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NikkiGaul0