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.
Should search pages be indexed?
-
Hey guys,
I've always believed that search pages should be no-indexed but now I'm wondering if there is an argument to index them?
Appreciate any thoughts!
-
I would definitely not allow search engines to index those type of results pages. To be fair, they're unlikely to come across them as a bot wouldn't typically fill in a search box to search, but ey might follow a link from somewhere else. For products, I would definitely want to be using category (or similar) pages to define what the search engines saw.
-
Thanks Jahir, any particular reason?
-
Thanks Alex, I mean search bars on eCommerce sites. More specifically, a search bar that filters down to products.
For help centre searches, I can understand why having the search box indexed would be useful - just don't think it would be a good idea for specific product searches. But I've never made a pro-con list so was looking more for opinions
-
I prefer not to allow search result pages to be indexed.
-
Do you mean pages you initiate the search from, or the search results page? (I know these can be the same thing in some cases)
I would allow a page that you search from to be indexed, depending upon what it is used to search. Someone who has put a query into Google might find your search page useful in resolving their query.
I wouldn't allow search results pages to be indexed, for obvious reasons, even for specific searches links from other locations. You'd be better off creating category index pages or similar.
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
-
I want to move some pages of my website to a folder and nav menu in those pages should only show inner page links, will it hurt SEO?
Hi, My website has a few SaaS products, to make my website simple i want to move my website some pages to its specific folder structure , so eg website.com/product1/features
Technical SEO | | webbeemoz
website.com/product1/pricing
website.com/product1/information and same for product2 and so on, the website.com/product1/.. menu will only show the links of product1 and only one link to homepage (possibly in footer). Please share your opinion will it be a good idea, from UI perspective it will be simple , but i am not sure about SEO perspective, please help thanks1 -
Google Search Console Showing 404 errors for product pages not in sitemap?
We have some products with url changes over the past several months. Google is showing these as having 404 errors even though they are not in sitemap (sitemap shows the correct NEW url). Is this expected? Will these errors eventually go away/stop being monitored by Google?
Technical SEO | | woshea0 -
Discrepancy in actual indexed pages vs search console
Hi support, I checked my search console. It said that 8344 pages from www.printcious.com/au/sitemap.xml are indexed by google. however, if i search for site:www.printcious.com/au it only returned me 79 results. See http://imgur.com/a/FUOY2 https://www.google.com/search?num=100&safe=off&biw=1366&bih=638&q=site%3Awww.printcious.com%2Fau&oq=site%3Awww.printcious.com%2Fau&gs_l=serp.3...109843.110225.0.110430.4.4.0.0.0.0.102.275.1j2.3.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..1.0.0.htlbSGrS8p8 Could you please advise why there is discrepancy? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Printcious0 -
How to check if an individual page is indexed by Google?
So my understanding is that you can use site: [page url without http] to check if a page is indexed by Google, is this 100% reliable though? Just recently Ive worked on a few pages that have not shown up when Ive checked them using site: but they do show up when using info: and also show their cached versions, also the rest of the site and pages above it (the url I was checking was quite deep) are indexed just fine. What does this mean? thank you p.s I do not have WMT or GA access for these sites
Technical SEO | | linklander0 -
How to stop google from indexing specific sections of a page?
I'm currently trying to find a way to stop googlebot from indexing specific areas of a page, long ago Yahoo search created this tag class=”robots-nocontent” and I'm trying to see if there is a similar manner for google or if they have adopted the same tag? Any help would be much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Iamfaramon0 -
Should i index or noindex a contact page
Im wondering if i should noindex the contact page im doing SEO for a website just wondering if by noindexing the contact page would it help SEO or hurt SEO for that website
Technical SEO | | aronwp0 -
Product Pages Outranking Category Pages
Hi, We are noticing an issue where some product pages are outranking our relevant category pages for certain keywords. For a made up example, a "heavy duty widgets" product page might rank for the keyword phrase Heavy Duty Widgets, instead of our Heavy Duty Widgets category page appearing in the SERPs. We've noticed this happening primarily in cases where the name of the product page contains an at least partial match for the desired keyword phrase we want the category page to rank for. However, we've also found isolated cases where the specified keyword points to a completely irrelevent pages instead of the relevant category page. Has anyone encountered a similar issue before, or have any ideas as to what may cause this to happen? Let me know if more clarification of the question is needed. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ShawnHerrick0 -
Splitting Page Authority with two URLs for the same page.
Hello guys, My website is currently holding two different URLs for the same page and I am under the impression such set up is dividing my Page Authority and Link Juice. We currently have the following page with both URLs below: www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/home.aspx
Technical SEO | | JoaoPdaCosta-WBR
www.wbresearch.com/soldiertechnologyusa/ Analysing the page authority and backlinks I identified that we are splitting the amount of backlinks (links from sites, social media and therefore authority). "/home.aspx"
PA: 67
Linking Root Domains: 52
Total Links: 272 "/"
PA: 64
Linking Root Domains: 29
Total Links: 128 I am under the impression that if the URLs were the same we would maximise our backlinks and therefore page authority. My Question: How can I fix this? Should I have a 301 redirect from the page "/" to the "/home.aspx" therefore passing the authority and link juice of “/” directly to “/homes.aspx”? Trying to gather thoughts and ideas on this, suggestions are much appreciated? Thanks!0