Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Accidently added a nofollow, noindex tag and then...
-
Hey guys,
My first post here and ironically highlights a ridiculously stupid mistake!
Ok, here's the deal...
I started building links to one of my new page on a fairly good, old site (DA = >35).
Before starting to build links, I added fresh new content, and while doing that, I accidentally added a "nofollow" and "noindex" tag to the page! Guess what, google DID de-index the page !
So the questions is (and YES, I did change the meta tags):
-
Will google re-index the page with some good linking?
-
Will it treat the page as a new, fresh page even though it was present for over a year?
-
I had already started link building to that page, and now technically the links are pointing to a page that does not exist in the index, so once it does get re-indexed, will Google FLAG it as having too many links?
-
Would I be ranking it as a new page? Will its previous ranking (for very few keywords) will come back?
Thanks and Regards,
Amod
-
-
Totally not an issue to be concerned about on any of those questions you asked - just remove the noindex tag and submit the URL(s) in WMT for Google to respider those specific pages faster, you'll be back up and running in no time.
-
Hi Amod,
I have also experienced this, our developer accidentally placed this "nofollow" tag across the entire website.
-
Yes, just get Google to fetch your pages via webmaster tools.
-
No.
-
No.
4). Rankings will come back as Matt has pointed out, no need to worry.
-
-
Hi Amod,
There are my thoughts:
1. Yes, of course Google we re-index the page. With or without 'good linking', next time it crawls the page (and it'll do that regardless of any new link building activity) it will see the tag has changed and include it in the index again.
2. No, it will be aware of the age of the page.
3. No, Google has already indexed all of the links pointing to your site. It won't suddenly forget that just because you added a noindex to your page. They're 2 seperate entities.
4. The rankings will come back, but it will take time. I've read blog posts about this in the past, perhaps someone else here could give an estimate? I'd imagine it depends on the strength of the page.
Thanks,
Matt
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
-
Should you 'noindex' Checkout Pages?
Today I was reviewing my Moz analytics and suddenly noticed 1,000 issues with pages without a meta description. I reviewed the list and learned it is 1,000 checkout pages. That's because my website has thousands of agency pages from which you can buy a product, and it reflects that difference on each version of the checkout. So, I was thinking about no-indexing (but continuing to 'follow') these checkout pages, but wondering if it has any knock-on effects I may be unaware of? Any assistance is much appreciated. Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Luke_Proctor0 -
Best Practices for Title Tags for Product Listing Page
My industry is commercial real estate in New York City. Our site has 300 real estate listings. The format we have been using for Title Tags are below. This probably disastrous from an SEO perspective. Using number is a total waste space. A few questions:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
-Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?
-If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?
-Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?
-I have red that titles should contain some form of branding. But our company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space. That would take up way too much space. Even "Metro Manhattan" is long. DO we need to use the title tag for branding or can we just focus on a brief description of page content incorporating one important phrase? Our site is: w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . c o m <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Turnkey Flatiron Tech Space | 2,850 SF $10,687/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Gallery, Office Rental | Midtown, W. 57 St | 4441SF $24055/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Open Plan Loft |Flatiron, Chelsea | 2414SF $12,874/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| Tribeca Corner Loft | Varick Street | 2267SF $11,712/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
| 275 Madison, LAW, P7, 3,252SF, $65 - Manhattan, New York |0 -
Title tag: Long tail words or keyword dilution?
Hi all, I am a newbie to SEO. Lately, I have been struggling to optimize my title tag. Ones say that we should have long tail words in title tags because long tail words improve click through rate and generate quality leads. On the other hand, ones say that putting other words in the title tag will dilute the main keyword that my page ranks for. Do keywords really dilute each other in the title tags? I am really confused. Let me give this an example: Web Design Services | Company Name Web Design Services with Conversion Focused | Company Name Which one would you prefer and why? Thank you. 😄 Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons?
Hello and Merry Christmass Should I NOFOLLOW my "Add To Cart" buttons? My e-commerce site has hundreds of products. Content wise, there is no real value to the reader on that page (besides for some testimonials and "why here" sentences). So it is not a page you'd want / expect to find in the SERPs. Also, with hundreds of links pointing to this page it would be "stronger" than other important pages which doesn't make sense. Last but not least, if I have limited time that the bots are on my site, why keep sending them to a non important page. This is why I am leaning to nofollowing the "add to cart" buttons and looking for reinforcements. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Should I 'nofollow' links between my own sites?
We have five sites which are largely unrelated but for cross-promotional purpose our company wishes to cross link between all our sites, possibly in the footer. I have warned about potential consequences of cross-linking in this way and certainly don't want our sites to be viewed as some sort of 'link ring' if they all link to one another. Just wondering if linking between sites you own really is that much of an issue and whether we should 'nofollow' the links in order to prevent being slapped with any sort of penalty for cross-linking.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simon_realbuzz0 -
Rel=canonical tag on original page?
Afternoon All,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jellyfish-Agency
We are using Concrete5 as our CMS system, we are due to change but for the moment we have to play with what we have got. Part of the C5 system allows us to attribute our main page into other categories, via a page alaiser add-on. But what it also does is create several url paths and duplicate pages depending on how many times we take the original page and reference it in other categories. We have tried C5 canonical/SEO add-on's but they all seem to fall short. We have tried to address this issue in the most efficient way possible by using the rel=canonical tag. The only issue is the limitations of our cms system. We add the canonical tag to the original page header and this will automatically place this tag on all the duplicate pages and in turn fix the problem of duplicate content. The only problem is the canonical tag is on the original page as well, but it is referencing itself, effectively creating a tagging circle. Does anyone foresee a problem with the canonical tag being on the original page but in turn referencing itself? What we have done is try to simplify our duplicate content issues. We have over 2500 duplicate page issues because of this aliasing add-on and want to automate the canonical tag addition, rather than go to each individual page and manually add this tag, so the original reference page can remain the original. We have implemented this tag on one page at the moment with 9 duplicate pages/url's and are monitoring, but was curious if people had experienced this before or had any thoughts?0 -
Should I nofollow the main navigation on certain pages?
We have several large Ecommerce sites with hundreds of links on each page. I have been trying to think of ways to focus our internal linking to increase certain pages relevancy. My thought was to put nofollow in the main navigation (since there are hundreds of links there controlled by dropdowns) and only follow the links on each page for the products we are selling and promoting (15-20 links). I would still be using a sitemap that includes the links. Is this a terrible idea? if a link is nofollowed in the main navigation does that still count as the one mention for google if it points to the same page that a normal link points too that is in the content of the page? since all of the main navigation is the same on every page of the website would it be good to only put nofollow on the subpages/subsections and leave the home page navigation alone (that would allow the spiders to crawl all of those links on the home page but not crawl those same links on the subsections where I could then focus the linking).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bigtimeseo0
