What would be considered a bad ratio to determine Index Bloat?
-
I am using Annie Cushing's most excellent site audit checklist from Google Docs. My question concerns Index Bloat because it is mentioned in her "Index" tab.
We have 6,595 indexed pages and only 4,226 of those pages have received 1 or more visits since January 1 2013.
Is this an acceptable ratio? If not, why not and what would be an acceptable ratio? I understand the basic concept that "dissipation of link juice and constrained crawl budget can have a significant impact on SEO traffic." [Thanks to Reid Bandremer http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/04/08/fifteen-minute-seo-health-check/#sr=g&m=o&cp=or&ct=-tmc&st=(opu%20qspwjefe)&ts=1385081787]
If we make this an action item I'd like to have some idea how to prioritize it compared to other things that must be done. Thanks all!
-
Hi EGOL,
Wow, thank you so very much. This is one of the best answers I've ever received, probably the best, here in Q & A. Your thoughtful comments and suggestions are so appreciated. Honestly, you gave me a check list of things that have potential to be pure gold for us if we act on them.
Yes, you are correct, this is the site that had many issues with content being under tabs. It's also got a tremendous amount of duplicate and thin content issues, in addition to orphaned pages. Progress has been coming along, slowly and surely, but having your comments, and having them be so specific, pointed and concise are something I can take to my team and say "Here's an awesome check list of things that we can actually address right now, without re-platforming the site [you know, there are always people who think that the root of all a site's problems is the platform that it's on...pure mythology]."
I hope many others find your check list useful. Combined with Annie's audit spreadsheet in Google docs, I feel like I have the tools I need to go to battle and help this site fulfill its potential. Nearly every point you mentioned struck a chord. Better yet, now that I know my way around the "guts" of this homegrown CMS, I feel like I can actually make the necessary changes.
Egol, I really can't thank you enough.
-
I totally agree Keri. Every word Egol wrote , to me, is worth its weight in gold. I think this may be the best response I have ever received here in Q & A.
-
If only people realized how much good information members drop in Q&A...
Once again, thanks for this EGOL!
-
From my experience, that is a frightening number of pages that have not received a visit. I would definitely be taking some type of action. This hits to me like a site in very bad health. I have lots of little pages on a weak little site that get a lot more traffic than none since January. This would be high on my priority list of things to solve. Solving this could bring major income so this is potential opportunity as much as it is a problem.
To diagnose, I would check.... I know you and suspect that you have looked at all of these but just making a list, just in case.
A) Duplicate content problem? Does this site have lots of pages with very similar other pages on the same site. Does the company have another site that is running the same product descriptions? Does the site run product descriptions that are used from a datafeed supplied to vendors? Are affiliates using the same content? Have other websites stolen the content?
B) Have you been scraped and republished by a strong website? Just one is all it would take. A strong site was once scraping and republishing some of my short content pages and that killed the traffic into a section of my site. As soon as I asked them to stop traffic was back within days. One site can hurt you like that or numerous small sites - even minor sites in Asia can do this.
C) Lots of thin content? Do you have a lot of pages that might only have two or three unique sentences? Google could be disrespecting your entire site because of this.
D) Technical problem? I would be looking at robots.txt and .htaccess, noindex, badly coded links, content management system causing duplicated title tags or other problems? Faulty analyitics that make it look like these pages are not getting traffic when really they are.
E) Content cannibalization? Lots of separate pages for red widgets that are being filtered from the SERPs.
F) Inadequate linkjuice? This is not a huge site but not a small one. Does it have a nice amount of linkjuice coming in?
G) Does this site have pages that are really deeeeep down in the linkstructure? Many clicks down? Fix that either with a new linkstructure or some kickass powerful links that hit nodes deep in the site to force spiders down. I would solve with linkstructure.
H) This isn't the site that had all of the content behind tabs that I remember from a while ago? (My memory is really bad so it might not even be your site.) If you have pages like that I would get rid of those tabs immediately. I have a personal opinion that Google does not treat content hidden behind tabs as well as content that is out in the open.
I) Are there a lot of other sites - strong ones - publlishing very similar pages - like product description pages - competing for the same keywords. If that is the case you could be crowded out of the SERPs and receiving no traffic on these pages.
J) Does this site have a bad history? Does it have something that might be causing a penalty or filtering?
After doing all of that you might have something that is really worth fixing. If you can't identify the problem I would be slashing, hatcheting those pages from the site right away.
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
-
Webpages & Images Index Graph Gone Down Badly in Google Search Console Why?
Hello All, What is going on with Sitemap Index Status in Google Search Console :- Webpages Submitted - 35000 index showing 21000 whereas previously approx 34500 were index. Images Submitted - 85000 index showing - 11000 whereas previously approx 80000 were index. Whereas when I search in google site:abcd.com is it showing approx 27000 index for webpages. No message from google for penalty or warning etc.Please help.
Technical SEO | | wright3350 -
Example of Google Indexing my Feedburner Links
As you can see, there are 2 results for the same page. One is the correct page URL, the other has the Feedburner parameters at the end: http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/articles/improving-user-engagement-with-the-right-blog-commenting-system.html http://www.thewebhostinghero.com/articles/improving-user-engagement-with-the-right-blog-commenting-system.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thewebhostinghero+(TheWebHostingHero.com) Can this cause duplicate content issues? Can I prevent Google from indexing my Feedburner links? My Feedburner settings are already set to noindex, what else can I do?!? 22cfThX.png
Technical SEO | | sbrault740 -
Bad link profile?
Hi Mozzers! We have recently been handed this client due to the former SEO company building up a bad link profile, which resulted in the site dropping off the search results all together. Forcing them to get a new domain. This happened in July last year and we are unsure whether it would be wise to submit a reconsideration request and then 301 their old sites pages to the new domain. Basically I'm asking whether you can spot any spammy links being built in their profile. Here is the old domain: http://www.claimssolicitors.co.uk/ It would be great if you could help me out! 🙂 Thanks
Technical SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
How to Find all the Pages Index by Google?
I'm planning on moving my online store, http://www.filtrationmontreal.com/ to a new platform, http://www.corecommerce.com/ To reduce the SEO impact, I want to redirect 301 all the pages index by Google to the new page I will create in the new platform. I will keep the same domaine name, but all the URL will be customize on the new platform for better SEO. Also, is there a way or tool to create CSV file from those page index. Can Webmaster tool help? You can read my question about this subject here, http://www.seomoz.org/q/impacts-on-moving-online-store-to-new-platform Thank you, BigBlaze
Technical SEO | | BigBlaze2050 -
301 forward of index to root
Hi, In my crawl diagnotics, I received an error for duplicate content: 1. www.website.com 2. www.website.com/ 3. www.website.com/index.html Which code do I have to add to my htaccess to avoid this?
Technical SEO | | wellnesswooz0 -
Problem with indexing
Hello, we've changed our CMS recently, everything seems to work well, but for some reason google, and other crawlers can't see or index other pages than main. There is no restriction in robots, nor any other visible issue. Please help if you can. Website: http://www.design-glassware.com/
Technical SEO | | divan0 -
What is consider best practice today for blocking admins from potentially getting indexed
What is consider best practice today for blocking pages, for instance xyz.com/admin pages, from getting indexed by the search engines or easily found. Do you recommend to still disallow it in the robots.txt file or is the robots.txt not the best place to notate your /admin location because of hackers and such? Is it better to hide the /admin with an obscure name, use the noidex tag on the page and don't list in the robots.txt file?
Technical SEO | | david-2179970 -
What tool do you use to check for URLs not indexed?
What is your favorite tool for getting a report of URLs that are not cached/indexed in Google & Bing for an entire site? Basically I want a list of URLs not cached in Google and a seperate list for Bing. Thanks, Mark
Technical SEO | | elephantseo3