Google indexing site content that I did not wish to be indexed
-
Hi is it pretty standard for Google to index content that you have not specifically asked them to index i.e. provided them notification of a page's existence.
I have just been alerted by 'Mention' about some new content that they have discovered, the page is on our site yes and may be I should have set it to NO INDEX but the page only went up a couple of days ago and I was making it live so that someone could look at it and see how the page was going to look in its final iteration. Normally we go through the usual process of notifying Google via GWMT, adding it to our site map.xml file, publishing it via our G+ stream and so on.
Reviewing our Analytics it looks like there has been no traffic to this page yet and I know for a fact there are no links to this page. I am surprised at the speed of the indexation, is it a example of brand mention? Where an actual link is now no longer required?
Cheers
David
-
Thanks Candyman, yes this is not a question about to prevent Google for not indexing my content, I know this very well. It is more about how quick they have done this with the least amount of effort on our part to inform them.
Plus it is quite an interesting situation you found yourself in, never heard of this before.
Many thanks
David
-
Hi David-
We had a similar situation recently where we had a dev site and forgot to no-index it and actually started to appear in the SERPS. After a bit of puzzling it LOOKS like Google found (or at least indexed) the pages as a function of us being logged into our Google accounts when viewing them. We did not do extensive testing on this, its mostly anecdotal but ti did look like it was true. Maybe we'll do the experiment one day to be sure!
Ken
-
Google is constantly indexing and viewing your website. Why go through the other steps? To ensure that your new page isn't overlooked. While you don't necessarily need to tell Google to index in GWT - your site map should automatically update, and if referenced in the robots.txt file than the new page will be found without issue.
Now, again if you don't want a page indexed and it has links than you need to do the noindex / no follow on the page, as the robots.txt can be over-ruled.
-
Hi Samuel,
Thanks for replying but no I'm not asking that, this I know how to do. The question is about whether this could be seen as an example of page indexation where on my part there has been no explicit activity to inform Google of the content's existence and there are no links to it yet Google is still managing to index it. Why bother informing Google vIA some of the activities mentioned earlier when they will just index it anyway you know.
Thanks
David
-
Are you asking how to prevent certain pages from appearing in search results? If so, I'd review Moz's guide to robots.
Specifically, I'd recommend the use of both the noindex meta tag and the robots.txt file. Good luck!
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
-
Does an EAT score on my YMYL site impact my rankings?
I've read some conflicting information on YMYL and EAT. If the Google Quality Raters are out there reviewing YMYL pages and scoring them on EAT, does that site's score have an impact on that page's/site's ranking?
Algorithm Updates | | BFMichael0 -
Google Local Algorithm Changes?
I was wondering if you have heard about any Google Local algorithm changes. We have about 200 franchise locations. Some of our locations have dropped significantly over the past few weeks. Locations that were showing up in the 1-3 positions are now no longer showing on the first page. This is for very relevant phrases for our main line of business (which is also in our business name)... ‘Phrase, CITY NAME’. These locations have plenty of positive Google reviews. We would typically rank well for a phrase like that based on our relevance. I did some brainstorming. Do you think any of these could have any impact? Google is all about things looking and feeling natural including link building, etc. We have used Yext which made a lot of changes across the web to fix addresses, etc. Do you think Google may be seeing this as unnatural? Too many changes at to many sites in to short a period of time? Along those same lines, do you think Google may be penalizing some of our franchise pages for being to ‘perfect’? It would be ‘natural’ for addresses to have some difference across the web and a bit unnatural to have them all match so perfectly. I know that Google has always stated the business name should be listed in Google Local the way it is listed to the general public. Things such as “Business Name Boston” should be listed as “Business Name”. Each of our franchise locations is named in house to reflect their geo location..... "Business Name Boston", "Business Name St. Louis". Many of our competitors also use the practice of attaching geo terms as well. Do you think we may be getting hit with a penalty now even though we have listed things on Google with the Geo term for years.... and is how WE refer to each location? Is it possible that by working with Yext, we drew attention to this practice? Should we remove our local listings geo term on Google Local? How about across the web? We are in a business that does not require customers to come to our location. Some of our locations have not suppressed the address in their local listings while others have. Many of our competitors have not. Do you think this could play into it? Some of our locations that are not showing in Local have good organic results. Have you heard anything about Google dropping Local if they show in organic? I know Google has been looking at social media more and more and I believe they will continue to do so. If our local pages have no social presence, could this adversely affect things? (I think this is probably not the case…. but wanted to throw it out there) I have noticed that in some cases where Local has dropped, we have multiple offices in that metro area. Is it possible that this could affect things? Have you heard of any Local algorithm changes? I know they are releasing a new dashboard sporadically, could this be in conjunction with a larger Local algorithm change? Our CMS tool does not allow us to change Title/Meta per page (I know... terrible!!). So every page has the same title and same meta description. (We are changing our CMS system! Can't wait!). Could this play into it? Thanks for any feedback!
Algorithm Updates | | MABES1 -
Google doesnt index my Google+ Profile
Hey guys! I know it sounds like a novice question, but I have checked ALL THE BOXES THAT TELL GOOGLE TO INDEX MY GOOGLE+ PROFILE. It is Visible for search - 100%. It's been 3 weeks since I opened a Google+ profile and it still hasn't been indexed for its name. Any guesses what's going on? (It's not this name so don't try to google me)
Algorithm Updates | | Yoav_Vilner0 -
Google Places/Points of Interest Rankings?
Does anyone have an idea on how Google ranks or determines the 'Points of Interests' that come up when searching about places/cities?
Algorithm Updates | | CarlLarson0 -
Should Your Keep Out Of Stock Item Active On Your Site ?
If you have sold out products that will never come back in stock. Should you remove the items and urls from your sitemap and site. Or should you keep them active with a sold out image. The purpose would be for search engines will think your site is larger due the products and amount of urls you have ?
Algorithm Updates | | TeamLogo0 -
Why am I getting different Google SERP result for same keywords?
Hi Mozzers, I have noticed recently that Google (.com.au) has been serving up different SERP results for the same keywords. For example, one of our main keywords is "Car Loan". One result will show our site as ranking #5 organically from 242,000,000 results. A refresh of this search will then result in our site not ranking at all from 133,000,000 results. We have been noticing this happen only in the last few days & more frustrating is that Google is throwing up the SERP from 133,000,000 results more frequently. Would anyone know why this is occurring? And what can we do, if anything, to ensure we are shown regardless of how many results Google calls from? Is it from recent algo update & will it settle down over time? Any help would be greatly appreciated. (Just to add - I'm not gogged in to Google when completing this test & regularly clear cookies etc so I don't believe its a personalised search issue)
Algorithm Updates | | 360Finance0 -
Google and Content at Top of Page Change?
We always hear about how Google made this change or that change this month to their algorithm. Sometimes it's true and other times it's just a rumor. So this week I was speaking with someone in the SEO field who said that this week a change occurred at Google and is going to become more prevalent where content placed at the "top of the fold" on merchant sites with products are going to get better placement, rather than if you have your products at top with some content beneath them at the bottom of the page. Any comments on this?
Algorithm Updates | | applesofgold0 -
How To Rank High In Google Places?
Hello SEOmoz, This question has been hounding me for a long time and I've never seen a single reliable information from the web that answers it. Anyway here's my question; Supposing that there are three Google places for three different websites having the same categories and almost same keywords and same district/city/IP how does Google rank one high from the other? Or simply put if you own one of those websites and you would want to rank higher over your competitors in Google places Search results how does one do it? A number of theories were brought up by some of my colleagues: 1. The age of the listing 2. The number of links pointing to the listing (supposing that one can build links to ones listing) 3. The name/url of the listing, tags, description, etc. 4. The address of the listing. 5. Authority of the domain (linked website) You see some listings have either no description, and only one category and yet they rank number one for a specific term/keyword whereas others have complete categories, descriptions etc. If you could please give me a definite answer I will surely appreciate it. Thank you very much and more power!
Algorithm Updates | | LeeAnn300