Should I use NoIndex on short-lived pages?
-
Hello,
I have a large number of product pages on my site that are relatively short-lived: probably in the region of a million+ pages that are created and then removed within a 24 hour period.
Previously these pages were being indexed by Google and did receive landings, but in recent times I've been applying a NoIndex tag to them.
I've been doing that as a way of managing our crawl budget but also because the 410 pages that we serve when one of these product pages is gone are quite weak and deliver a relatively poor user experience.
We're working to address the quality of those 410 pages but my question is should I be no-indexing these product pages in the first place?
Any thoughts or comments would be welcome.
Thanks.
-
Yep - Product category pages are already quite strong.
Part of whats behind the question is that I've previously come into contact with a "bigger sites rank better" SEO philosophy.
So when I see that we've got over 1m+ pages in Search Console that are excluded on the basis of NoIndex tags it makes me wonder if I'm missing a trick!
-
Hi Philip,
I do. If you can provide more details on your site, I can give you additional advice on how to structure it. If it's an ecommerce site, sometimes what you may want to do is optimize the product category pages and no-index the indivdiual product pages (especially if they cycle out).
I hope that helps!
John
-
Thanks John.
By "short term" do you mean until we've improved the UX on the 410 pages?
Then remove the noindex after that?
-
Hi Phillip! I would say yes to no-index as a short-term solution.
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
-
Should remove 404 page
Hello, I upload a new website with new web addresses and my current addresses don't work anymore. I don't want to do redirects. Should I just remove the old address from google index using their tool or let google do it on its own. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
How would you handle these pages? Should they be indexed?
If a site has about 100 pages offering specific discounts for employees at various companies, for example... mysite.com/discounts/target mysite.com/discounts/kohls mysite.com/discounts/jcpenney and all these pages are nearly 100% duplicates, how would you handle them? My recommendation to my client was to use noindex, follow. These pages tend to receive backlinks from the actual companies receiving the discounts, so obviously they are valuable from a linking standpoint. But say the content is nearly identical between each page; should they be indexed? Is there any value for someone at Kohl's, for example, to be able to find this landing page in the search results? Here is a live example of what I am talking about: https://www.google.com/search?num=100&safe=active&rlz=1C1WPZB_enUS735US735&q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fpoi8.petinsurance.com%2Fbenefits%2F&oq=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fpoi8.petinsurance.com%2Fbenefits%2F&gs_l=serp.3...7812.8453.0.8643.6.6.0.0.0.0.174.646.3j3.6.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..0.5.586...0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i67k1j0i131i67k1j0i131i46k1j46i131k1j0i20k1j0i10i3k1.RyIhsU0Yz4E
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
Site Structure - Is it ok to Keep current flat architecture of existing site pages and use silo structure on two new categories only?
Hi there, I have a site structure flat like this it ranks quite well for its niche site.com/red-apples.html site.com/blue-apples.html The site is branching out into a new but related lines of business is it ok to keep existing site architecture as above while using a silo structure just for the two new different but related business? site.com/meat/red-meat.html site.com/fish/oceant-trout.html Thanks for any advice!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | servetea0 -
Rel canonical on every page, pointing to home page
I've just started working with a client and have been surprised to find that every page of their site (using Concrete5 CMS) has a rel=canonical pointing to their home page. I'm feeling really dumb, because this seems like a fatal flaw which would keep Google from ranking any page other than the home page... but when I look at Google Analytics, Content > Site Content > Landing Pages, using Secondary Dimension = Source, it seems that Google is delivering users to numerous pages on their site. Can anyone help me out?! Thanks very much!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | measurableROI0 -
Can obfuscated Javascript be used for too many links on a page?
Hi mozzers Just looking for opinions/answers on if it is ever appropriate to use obfuscated Javascript on links when a page has many links but they need to be there for usability? It seems grey/black hat to me as it shows users something different to Google (alarm bells are sounding already!) BUT if the page has many links it's losing juice which could be saved....... Any thoughts appreciated, thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TrevorJones0 -
Can you use more than one meta robots tag per page?
If you want to add both "noindex, follow" and "noopd" should you add two meta robots tags or is there a way to combine both into one?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Will Google Visit Non-Canonicalized Page Again and Return Its Page's Original Ranking?
I have 2 questions about canonicalization. 1. Will Google ever visit Page A again if after it has been canonicalized to Page B? 2. If Google will still visit Page A and found that it is not canonicalizing to Page B already, will the original rankings and traffic of Page A returned to the way before it's canonicalized? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | globalsources.com0 -
Would the use of
Hi, I am wondering on you through relevant to SEO in the following situation. I have a "travel" website and obvisouls as part of that I have a whole list of desitinations. So I have a drop down in my page navigation, which lists all my desitinations. At the moment I see have 2 main options to display the lists as follows: 1/. Perfect Anchors, but not good for usability - IE repeating the word "holiday in a list of 100 destinations, looks spammy for one, and when the headline says "Holiday Destinations", then from a use perspective its pretty pointless and takes away from navigation rather than improves it".
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
New York Holidays
Las Vegas Holidays 2/. Non Perfect Anchors - But better for usability
New York
Las Vegas So I am thinking - would the use of the title attribute provide a perfect solution?? Or am I wasting my time with this and it is just pointless considering it as an option. EG - what I had in mind was:
3/. Ideal Solution for both SEO and usability??
New York
Las Vegas Thanks for you help in advance.0