To index search results or not?
-
In its webmaster guidelines, Google says not to index search results " that don't add much value for users coming from search engines." I've noticed several big brands index search results, and am wondering if it is generally OK to index search results with high engagement metrics (high PVPV, time on site, etc).
We have an database of content, and it seems one of the best ways to get this content in search engines would be to allow indexing of search results (to capture the long tail) rather than build thousands of static URLs.
Have any smaller brands had success with allowing indexing of search results? Any best practices or recommendations?
-
Matt Cutts addressed this back in 2007:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/search-results-in-search-results/Short answer: its best not to allow it as Google will drop it when they catch it so its just a waste of your time.
I hope that helps!
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 Indexed pages
Hope everyone is having an Awesome December! I first noticed a drop in my index in the beginnings of November. My site drop in indexed pages from 1400 to 600 in the past 3-4 weeks. I don't know the cause of it, and would like the community to help me figure out why my indexing has dropped. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to read this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BSC0 -
What URL parameter settings in GWT to choose for search results parameter?
Hello,we're about to disallow search results from crawling in robots.txt, but in GWT we have to specify URL parameters. URLs with 'search' parameter look like these: http://www.example.com/?search=keyword So in GWT we're setting the following parameter: search Question, what settings to set for it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | poiseo0 -
Why Is Google Indexing These Product Pages On Shopify?
How can we communicate to Google the exact product pages we'd like indexed on our site? We're an apparel company that uses Shopify as our ecommerce platform. Website is sportiqe.com. Currently, Google is indexing all types of different pages on our site. **Example of a product page we want indexed: ** Product Page: sportiqe.com/products/PRODUCT-TITLE (Like This) **Examples of product pages being indexed: ** sportiqe.myshopify.com/products/PRODUCT-TITLE sportiqe.com/collections/COLLECTION-NAME/products/PRODUCT-TITLE See attached for an example of how two different "Boston Celtics Grateful Dead" shirts are being indexed. Any suggestions? We've used both Shopify and Google Webmaster tools to set our preferred domain (sportiqe.com). We've also added this snippet of code to our site three months ago thinking that would do the trick... {% if template == 'product' %}{% if collection %} {% endif %}{% endif %} sKwNZOl
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | farmiloe0 -
No Results for Google/Bing Keyword Search by Domain Name
My site is bestwebconsult [dot] com When I do a search for my exact domain name in Google and bing, it does not appear at all. I have submitted a sitemap to Webmaster Tools. It is a relatively new site completed with in the last month. Built with Joomla. This leads me to believe that something is misconfigured on the website. Please advise, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crave811 -
Sitemap Folders on Search Results
Hello! We are managing SEO campaign of a video website. We have an issue about sitemap folders. I have sitemaps like ** /xml/sitemap-name.xml .** But Google is indexing my /xml/ folder and also sitemaps and they appear in search results. If i will add Disallow: /xml/ to my robots.txt and remove /xml/ folder from webmaster tools, Google could see my sitemaps? or it ignores them? Will my site effect negatively after remove /xml/ folder completely from search results? What should i do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | roipublic0 -
Search results all going to home page
I'm an author, and after doing a search for one of my books I realized that no matter what was searched, the user was getting lead to the homepage. please see the attached picture. How do I fix this and is this hurting my SEO? Capture.JPG Capture1.JPG
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Search result clicks for one of my posts down significantly
I started receiving a warning warning in google webmaster tools about 2 weeks ago that said "big traffic change for top url". On reading the message i saw "Search results clicks for http://goo.gl/EyhUJ have decreased significantly". When I search google using the keyword "sore breasts" for which that post used to rank at least number 2 on google, I dont see anything. The related post http://goo.gl/vP025 is still ranking well. Can anyone give me an idea of what might have happened? I am totally at sea. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adaeze0 -
Undocumented anchor-text API result
Regarding the anchor-text api, there is no definition for *imr on the wiki:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sycorr
http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/13991127/Anchor Text API ie. http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/anchor-text/google.com?Scope=phrase_to_page&Cols=2048&Sort=domains_linking_page&Expires=1329770786.46868 returns "[{"apuimr":5.422834471373288e-12},{"apuimr":4.785130890652429e-13},{"apuimr":2.922901387480201e-09}]" What is *imr?0