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
-
Home Page Title - Google Overriding my Title Tag
Hi, We have noticed our home page title tag has now been replaced by our brand name (by Google I'm assuming). We have also noted that the page is dropping off SERPS for our main keywords, I suspect they are related but ofc I cant be sure. I know the recent Google update has impacted titles but I wasn't sure if it would apply here. Has anyone any advice on this and/or having the same issue? We normally rank well for grass seed (UK search) https://thegrasspeople.com/ I also noticed some strange mark up in our source code which seems to have been left behind by Sketch - we are getting this removed. <title>Combined Shape</title> <desc>Created with Sketch.</desc> Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Mc0 -
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 -
Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?
We are an e-commerce marketplace at for alternative fashion and home decor. We have over 1000+ stores on the marketplace. Early this year, we switched the website from HTTP to HTTPS in March 2018 and also added noindex and nofollow tags to the store about page and store policies (mostly boilerplate content) Our traffic dropped by 45% and we have since not recovered. We have done I am wondering could these tags be affecting our rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JimJ1 -
SEO friendly H1 tag with 2 text lines
Hi everyone, I am trying to add span tags in H1, break tag on 2 lines and style each line of H1 differently: Example: Line 1Line 2 I might add a smaller font for line 2 as well... Is this SEO friendly? Will crawlers read entire text or can interfere and block it. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bgvsiteadmin0 -
Good or bad adding keywords in Pinterest description?
I added all keywords in description. Will this affect my website, Google takes this as negative way? I am not adding keywords on my own website, but adding keywords to third party website? https://www.pinterest.com/pin/304555993526970292/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Partial duplicate content and canonical tags
Hi - I am rebuilding a consumer website, and each product page will contain a unique product image, and a sentence or two about the product (and we tend to use a lot of the same words in different ways across products). I'd like to have a tabbed area below the product info that talks about the overall product line, and this content would be duplicate across all the product pages (a "Why use our products" type of thing). I'd have this duplicate content also living on its own URL's so they can be found alone in the SERP's. Question is, do I need to add the canonical tag to this page, since there's partial duplicate content on the product pages? And if I did that, would my product pages go un-indexed?? I understand how to handle completely duplicated content, it's the partial duplicate that I'm having difficulty figuring out.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jenny10 -
Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?
Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Noindex,follow is a waste of link juice?
On my wordpress shopping cart plugin, I have three pages /account, /checkout and /terms on which I have added “noindex,follow” attribute. But I think I may be wasting link juice on these pages as they are not to be indexed anyway, so is there any point giving them any link juice? I can add “noindex,nofollow” on to the page itself. However, the actual text/anchor link to these pages on the site header will remain “follow” as I have no means of amending that right now. So this presents the following two scenarios – No juice flows from homepage to these 3 pages (GOOD) – This would be perfect then, as the pages themselves have nofollow attribute. Juice flows from homepage to these pages (BAD) - This may mean that the juice flows from homepage anchor text links to these 3 pages BUT then STOPS there as they have “nofollow” attribute on that page. This will be a bigger problem and if this is the case and I cant stop the juice from flowing in, then ill rather let it flow out to other pages. Hope you understand my question, any input is very much appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamBuck1