Conditional Noindex for Dynamic Listing Pages?

[yaelslater]

Hi,

We have dynamic listing pages that are sometimes populated and sometimes not populated. They are clinical trial results pages for disease types, some of which don't always have trials open. This means that sometimes the CMS produces a blank page -- pages that are then flagged as thin content.

We're considering implementing a conditional noindex -- where the page is indexed only if there are results.

However, I'm concerned that this will be confusing to Google and send a negative ranking signal.

Any advice would be super helpful.

Thanks!

[LoganRay]

Hi,

I would advise against this for a couple reasons. First of all, dropping and re-adding pages to the index isn't quick, it often takes weeks before Google will obey a noindex tag. Second, even if it were quick, is going to cause problems at the authority level - is your site a trustworthy source of information? This week, yes, next week, no. It's best to have long-term content that can build trust/authority over time without ephemeral.

An alternative approach you might take is writing content about the particular trials offered, this will help prevent thin content. You might also consider adding a call to action on empty pages that prompt users to provide an email address and you'll notify them when trials of type XYZ have opened back up.