Best practice for removing pages
-
I've got some crappy pages that I want to delete from a site.
I've removed all the internal links to those pages and resubmitted new site maps that don't show the pages anymore, however the pages still index in search (as you would expect).
My question is, what's the best practice for removing these pages?
Should I just delete them and be done with it or make them 301 re-direct to a nicer generic page until they are removed from the search results?
-
Thanks for all the responses.
Think I'll opt for a server 301 to a suitable page
-
An alternative for removing them from search results, besides a 301, is meta robots - noindex. You would do this if you do not want them passing any link value to 301d pages, which it doesn't sound like you would want them to.
-Dan
-
Hi Shelly
If the pages are 'crappy' as you describe, then a good idea to delete them as poor quality pages can negatively affect the site overall.
If you are going to delete the pages, then yes, cisaz is right, ensure they are 301 redirected to a relevant page to retain some of the link benefits and to give direct visitors to those pages somewhere to go other than a 404 error page.
Also, request the removal of the URLs of the deleted pages within Google Webmaster Tools to speed up the de-indexing of them. (Will need a NoIndex robots tag on the pages, and/or a Disallow in the robots.txt file).
Regards
Simon
-
I would go with your second Idea, "Delete them and be done with it or make them 301 re-direct to a nicer generic page until they are removed".
Dont want to loose any link back juice you may have.
Hope this 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
-
On 1 of our sites we have our Company name in the H1 on our other site we have the page title in our H1 - does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1, H2 and Page Tile
We have 2 sites that have been set up slightly differently. On 1 site we have the Company name in the H1 and the product name in the page title and H2. On the other site we have the Product name in the H1 and no H2. Does anyone have any advise about the best information to have in the H1 and H2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
I have 2 keywords I want to target, should I make one page for both keywords or two separate pages?
My team sells sailboats and pontoon boats all over the country. So while they are both boats, the target market is two different types of people... I want to make a landing page for each state so if someone types in "Pontoon Boats for sale in Michigan" or "Pontoon boats for sale in Tennessee," my website will come up. But I also want to come up if someone is searching for sailboats for sale in Michigan or Tennessee (or any other state for that matter). So my question is, should I make 1 page for each state that targets both pontoon boats and sailboats (total of 50 landing pages), or should I make two pages for each state, one targeting pontoon boats and the other sailboats (total of 100 landing pages). My team has seen success targeting each state individually for a single keyword, but have not had a situation like this come up yet.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanMaster0 -
Page Count in Webmaster Tools Index Status Versus Page Count in Webmaster Tools Sitemap
Greeting MOZ Community: I run www.nyc-officespace-leader.com, a real estate website in New York City. The page count in Google Webmaster Tools Index status for our site is 850. The page count in our Webmaster Tools Sitemap is 637. Why is there a discrepancy between the two? What does the Google Webmaster Tools Index represent? If we filed a removal request for pages we did not want indexed, will these pages still show in the Google Webmaster Tools page count despite the fact that they no longer display in search results? The number of pages displayed in our Google Webmaster Tools Index remains at about 850 despite the removal request. Before a site upgrade in June the number of URLs in the Google Webmaster Tools Index and Google Webmaster Site Map were almost the same. I am concerned that page bloat has something to do with a recent drop in ranking. Thanks everyone!! Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
My landing page changed in google's serp. I used to have a product page now I have a pdf?
I have been optimizing this page for a few weeks now and and have seen our page for up from 23rd to 11th on the serp's. I come to work today and not only have I dropped to 15 but I've also had my relevant product page replaced by this page . Not to mention the second page is a pdf! I am not sure what happened here but any advice on how I could fix this would be great. My site is www.mynaturalmarket.com and the keyword I'm working on is Zyflamend.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenyonManu3-SEOSEM0 -
Getting individual website pages to rank for their targeted terms instead of just the home page
Hi Everyone, There is a pattern which I have noticed when trying to get individual pages to rank for the allocated targeted terms when I execute an SEO campaign and would been keen on anyones thoughts on how they have effectively addressed this. Let me try and explain this by going through an example: Let's say I am a business coach and already have a website where it includes several of my different coaching services. Now for this SEO campaign, I'm looking to improve exposure for the clients "business coaching" services. I have a quick look at analytics and rankings and notice that the website already ranks fairly well for that term but from the home page and not the service page. I go through the usual process of optimising the site (on-page - content, meta data, internal linking) as well as a linkbuilding campaign throughout the next couple of month's, however this results in either just the home page improving or the business page does improve, but the homepage's existing ranking has suffered, therefore not benefiting the site overall. My question: If a term already ranks or receives a decent amount of traffic from the home page and not from the page that its supposed to, why do you think its the case and what would you be your approach to try shift the traffic to the individual page, without impacting the site too much?. Note: To add the home page keyword target term would have been updated? Thanks, Vahe
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vahe.Arabian0 -
Removing a Page From Google index
We accidentally generated some pages on our site that ended up getting indexed by google. We have corrected the issue on the site and we 404 all of those pages. Should we manually delete the extra pages from Google's index or should we just let Google figure out that they are 404'd? What the best practice here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles0 -
Setting a 404, best practices
Is it enough to just delete a page, or is it necessary to do something else to 404 a page correctly? Is there a great link to explain how to set http status codes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Removing pages from index
Hello, I run an e-commerce website. I just realized that Google has "pagination" pages in the index which should not be there. In fact, I have no idea how they got there. For example, www.mydomain.com/category-name.asp?page=3434532
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexGop
There are hundreds of these pages in the index. There are no links to these pages on the website, so I am assuming someone is trying to ruin my rankings by linking to the pages that do not exist. The page content displays category information with no products. I realize that its a flaw in design, and I am working on fixing it (301 none existent pages). Meanwhile, I am not sure if I should request removal of these pages. If so, what is the best way to request bulk removal. Also, should I 301, 404 or 410 these pages? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Alex0