How do I eliminate indexed products?
-
Please help! We got clobbered by Penguin and are at risk of having to close down after 10 years. We have been trying to figure out why and believe now it might be because of duplicate content. We added 2" inserts in March (over 500):
http://www.trophycentral.com/inserts1.html
Even though each is a different products, SEOMOZ is saying they are considered duplicate content. Given the timing, we think this might be the cause, even though it is totally legitimate.
Question - since these are now indexed and since we can't easily add content quickly, what is the best way to handle this situation? A no-index tag?
Is there a way to let Google know that their algorithm is detroying legitimate businesses??
-
Got it - thanks. I will be making the changes over the next few days. Unfortunately, I published the site last night and it will take about 18 hours so I can't access it for a while.
-
Remeber 6that should be a no-index,follow not a no-index,no-follow
-
Thanks, Alan. I had put a no-index, no-follow on the main category (inserts1.html) so that google could not get to the individual products to index them. That was the quickest thing I could do given how many products I need to update. Based on your note though, I will go through the individual products with a no-index, but it will take some time. Thanks again!
-
I can see them now - THANK YOU!!!
-
If they are noindex, then it should not be problem, but i would not no-follow as all links pointing the the no follow pages will waster their link juice, if you have no-index follow then the link jucie will flow back out of the no-indexed pages.
but having a look at the page, i can not see any no-index tag in the page
-
site:trophycentral.com -www shows all content indexed not within the www subdomain.
-
Sorry to bother you again - last question - I promise! Where did you see the mobile.trophycentral.com pages indexed? I when on to google and didn't see them in the main index. Thanks!
-
Alan, thank you! I just sent a note to the programmer who created the mobile site. For now, I am going to have them get it out of the index and I have stopped the redirection so that there is no mobile site. This may not be the best thing for the long-run, but for now I can at least be sure I fix the mobile issue. I have also fixed the strictlygifts linking. Working on removing more duplicate content now.
Thanks again!
-
This is a sad reality that many business owners face. SEO is a very complex process and unfortunately it's a case of two-fold barriers to success.
On the one hand, not all SEO's really know, or even if they do, don't consider long-term ramifications of what they might be recommending. Many of us in the industry think and act otherwise, however it is a problem nonetheless.
On the other hand, Google constantly changes their rules to a certain extent - as more people look for ways to game the system, what may have been acceptable previously can become unacceptable as Google tries to clean up the mess. It's a vicious circle.
So...
You can get "rid" of indexed pages by blocking them through a robots.txt file - if there are patterns to their URLs. if it's an entire site, you can block the whole site in one line in the robots.txt file. If it's multiple sections of a site, you can block entire sections while leaving other sections open for search indexing. A professional should be tapped to help you with that.
Its important to consider whether pages should be blocked, or instead, redirected to other pages that you want indexed or are indexed that are similar in nature.
Bad link evaluation is a professional process and should not be undertaken lightly. In many cases, site owners will ignore your requests, so it's important to at least get the request process right and to document the process. Again, a professional is needed for that.
And yes, you can submit a request after that's done.
Unfortunately, anyone you task to do the work that would be able to help you will both charge you for their time and cannot guarantee that what is done will be enough. It's another reality of the world we operate in because Google cannot reveal trade secrets to help you know what exactly needs to be done.
-
Alan, thank you so much for this. I am the founder of the business and not a webmaster, so parden these questions:
1. I originally thought it was the mobile site that caused this given the timing, but was told that somehow google was on the lookout for mobile.xxx and that it was not an issue.** I am sure you are right! How can I get rid of the indexed pages? ** I turned the mobile redirect off a couple of weeks ago so it is not even active.
2. My search provider told me they made changes to get rid of most of the pages, but since I are still seeing them, I am concerned. Is thiere something I can do to get rid of the pages?
3. I can easily change strictlygifts - this is the only thing that was intentional (but done about 8 years ago!).
4. How can I tell which are bad links - low page rank?
I have made thousands of changes based on the advice of others - improved the site speed, removed crawl errors, got rid of hundreds of pages, added duplicate content, etc. We were not given any sort of manual penalty - can I still submit a request after the above is done?
Thank you again. I have built this business over the last 10 years and to see it destroyed overnight is heartbreaking. I can't tell you how much your help is appreciated.
-
I checked a few things -you have bigger fish to fry.
Search.trophycentral.com and mobile.trophycentral.com - are either of those causing duplicate content problems on a mass scale? Google has 8k www pages indexed, and three times as many non www pages indexed.
Then looking at your inbound link profile, you've got a huge volume of inbound links from very low quality "SEO only" sites relative to your total inbound link profile. Very serious problem there.
Then you've got another site you apparently own site (StrictlyGifts.com) where you have a footer link with keywords, from every page of that site pointing to the TrophyCentral site.
The list goes on.
The cumulative impact is clearly a case of your site showing all the signs of SEO stuffing and unnatural link building. Even if some of it was unintentional (like the duplicate content conflicts across sub-domains), the pattern is clear.
1. Do all you can to get as many of the bad links removed as possible. Keep a spreadsheet of that effort.
2. Block search.trophycentral.com from search engines.
3. Either redirect mobile.trophycentral.com to the main www site and have the main www site redesigned to be flexible and responsive to different viewing platforms, or get together with a mobile SEO expert to otherwise address that duplicate content issue.
4. Add high quality unique descriptive text based content to all of your primary category and sub-category pages, and even some on every product page.
5. Consider submitting a reconsideration request to Google after you've made real headway on all of that work. Be willing to submit the spreadsheet to show links you've had removed and which you tried to but couldn't. Explain all the other steps you've taken.
You may get a bounce after that or it could just take the next Penguin update if you've done most of that before the next update.
Either way, that's just recommendations that come from only a few minutes looking at your site. There could be many other issues to address.
-
Alan, thanks. Not to sound stupid, but
1. What about the product looks like it is spam to you?
2. If I have a no index, no follow in inserts1, will that prevent goolge from all of the sub pages?
3. If the pages are already indexed, how can I get rid of them?
Sorry for the ignorant questions, but I own the business and I am not a webmaster.
Thnaks!
-
I had a quick look at this page http://www.trophycentral.com/50401.html
I found below, it is much longer thenthe sample i gave here, i would get rid of it, it looks like you are trying to spam the results
var = new Array('Have used them many times. Seamless transactions - all done through the web. Top quality product. Fast delivery. Custom engraving, including logos. Highly recommended. DR Angola, IN','This was my first order with Trophy Central, and my experience was great. I did everything on-line, the....
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
-
Drop in traffic, spike in indexed pages
Hi, We've noticed a drop in traffic compared to the previous month and the same period last year. We've also noticed a sharp spike in indexed pages (almost doubled) as reported by Search Console. The two seemed to be linked, as the drop in traffic is related to the spike in indexed pages. The only change we made to our site during this period is we reskinned out blog. One of these changes is that we've enable 'normal' (not ajax) pagination. Our blog has a lot of content on, and we have about 550 odd pages of posts. My question is, would this impact the number of pages indexed by Google, and if so could this negatively impact organic traffic? Many thanks, Jason
Technical SEO | | Clickmetrics0 -
Discontinued Product on a Ecommerce site
To create a better customer experience, rather then remove discontinued product from a site, we remove many links from the page, and remove it from the navigation of the site, but we keep the url and show that the product can no longer be purchased. This keeps the links, keeps the content, and gives customers the opportunity to find other products we have. But I often wonder if we should allow this items to just 404 and be done with them. Here is an example. http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-dyn-bm5a-list. Any advice?
Technical SEO | | dianeb1520 -
Investigating a huge spike in indexed pages
I've noticed an enormous spike in pages indexed through WMT in the last week. Now I know WMT can be a bit (OK, a lot) off base in its reporting but this was pretty hard to explain. See, we're in the middle of a huge campaign against dupe content and we've put a number of measures in place to fight it. For example: Implemented a strong canonicalization effort NOINDEX'd content we know to be duplicate programatically Are currently fixing true duplicate content issues through rewriting titles, desc etc. So I was pretty surprised to see the blow-up. Any ideas as to what else might cause such a counter intuitive trend? Has anyone else see Google do something that suddenly gloms onto a bunch of phantom pages?
Technical SEO | | farbeseo0 -
Site Indexed but not Cached?
I launched a new website ~2 weeks ago that seems to be indexed but not cached. According to Google Webmaster most of the pages are indexed and I see them appear when I search site:www.xxx.com. However, when I type into the URL - cache:www.xxx.com I get a 404 error page from Google.
Technical SEO | | theLotter
I've checked more established websites and they are cached so I know I am checking correctly here... Why would my site be indexed but not in the cache?0 -
How to change noindex to index?
Hey, I've recently upgraded to a pro SEOmoz account and have realised i have 14574 issues to do with 'blocked by meta-robot' and that 'This page is being kept out of the search engine indexes by the meta tag , which may have a value of "noindex", keeping this page out of the index.' How can i change this so my pages get indexed? I read somewhere that i need to change my privacy settings but that thread was 3 years old and now the WP Dashboard has updated.. Please let me know Many thanks, Jamie P.s Im using WordPress 3.5 And i have the XML sitemap plugin And i have no idea where to look for this robots.txt file..
Technical SEO | | markgreggs0 -
Google indexing tags help
Hey everyone, So yesterday someone pointed out to me that Google is indexing tags and that will likely hurt search engine results. I just did a "site:thetechblock.com" and I notice that tags are still being pulled. http://d.pr/i/WmE6 Today, I went into my Yoast settings and checked "noindex,follow" tags in the Taxomomies settings. I just want to make sure what I'm doing is right. http://d.pr/i/zmbd Thanks guys
Technical SEO | | ttb0 -
Rel=canonical + no index
We have been doing an a/b test of our hp and although we placed a rel=canonical tag on the testing page it is still being indexed. In fact at one point google even had it showing as a sitelink . We have this problem through out our website. My question is: What is the best practice for duplicate pages? 1. put only a rel= canonical pointing to the "wanted original page" 2. put a rel= canonical (pointing to the wanted original page) and a no index on the duplicate version Has anyone seen any detrimental effect doing # 2? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Morris770 -
Why is Google only indexing 3 of 8 pages?
Hi everyone, I have a small 8 page website I launched about 6 months ago. For the life of me I can not figure out why google is only indexing 3 of the 8 pages. The pages are not duplicate content in any way. I have good internal linking structure. At this time I dont have many inbound links from others, that will come in time. Am I missing something here? Can someone give me a clue? Thanks Tim Site: www.jparizonaweddingvideos.com
Technical SEO | | fasctimseo0