Block Low Quality Pages?
-
What are your thoughts on blocking (in robots.txt) and/or noindexing low-quality pages to defend against Panda, assuming you can't remove, redirect, or add quality content to it? Also, assume there are no external links pointing to these low-quality pages, no social shares, and zero incoming organic traffic.
Has anyone had experience with this as a solution to Panda?
-
Hi there,
For any such low quality pages, I'd suggest asking two simple questions first:
-
Is the page important for my users, does it add any value ?
-
Is the page beneficial for the site's SEO ?
which I think you have asked already from reading your question, so well done there.
Pages can usually be removed or redirected, perhaps not yet though at some point, they can be.
From what you've said, it sounds like those such pages are adding no value to anybody whatsoever, so Mike is right in suggesting to block them.
I have some further thoughts for you;
If the page adds no value to your visitors though could be useful for search, then think about Consolidating that page into another (re-using some of the content) or simply 301 redirect it to an appropriate & more valuable page.
This idea came from an SEOmoz Mozinar (web conference) from yesterday, is a great concept.
There is no point in keeping pages of no value there but hidden away from search engines or users, simple get rid of any such pages by Consolidation or 301 redirects.
If the page holds no user value though has some SEO value, then consider 301 redirecting it to another appropriate page.
Consolidation and Redirects help to keep a site clean, rather than blocking or noindexing pages that no longer need to be there.
If in doubt, then by all means make use of Robots.txt or the NoIndex attribute until you are sure of what to do with them long term.
Hope that helps,
Regards
Simon
-
-
If they are of no value to anybody, I'd just block them.
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
-
Hi, on SEO article submissions, do I only include the link to the page I am trying to promote or is it best practice to also include a link to home page or parent page?
Good day. I am writing articles for submission, I would just like some help with the page structure. Do I only include the link for the page that I would like to promote or is it advisable to include other page links, such as home page or the parent category too? Any help would be appreciated
Content Development | | thebedguy0 -
My first Guest post. Well, it's about quality!
I've started my new blog two months ago. I thought about two things: quality and authority. So, I started with high-quality content and let me tell you that based on my own experience, quality is the queen of all this. Now, my new blog reaches roughly 270 unique users each day that generate 811 daily page views (1% from Google, %0.3 from other search engines, 56% from social media, 28% from links, 14% direct, 0.7% spammy sites). Alexa Global: 1,238,771 Then I've started the author journey trying to write guest posts on high-quality blogs. I found that there're two options to do guest blogging. Writing an article medium-quality and keep the high-quality content for my blog. Or, providing a high-quality content under any post that comes with my name. I found a high-quality blog which may accept my article. So, I thought about the two options and then I decided to provide a very high-quality content and I did. The message which I received about my article was so amazing. I had some grammars mistakes and they said literally: "We didn't mind as much doing the editing since you put so much effort into providing our readers with excellent content!" I'm so happy really and based on this experience I recommend you to think about the authority more than the link. What will make you provide high-quality content under your name instead of keeping it only for your blog. Have an experience with guest blogging? Why don't you share it with us to help others as well?
Content Development | | Eslam-yosef2 -
How do I properly sitemap a site with static pages + Wordpress in it's own directory?
I apologize for the awkward wording in the headline. No to the issue, I have a site with static pages that are created as follows: url.com, url.com/page1, url.com/page2, etc. I then have WordPress install at url.com/blog. What is the proper method for creating a comprehensive sitemap for my entire domain. I like the sitemap feature provided by Yoast SEO plugin but I assume it will only index the wordpress directory (url.com/blog). Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Content Development | | Qcmny0 -
Gallary Pages
We have multiple Gallery Pages on a website and they are all being indexed as duplicate content. I am assuming it's because there's no content on those pages. So, it's picking up the pages header/footer navigation and considering it content. I am not sure what the best way is to deal with Gallery pages. I want the images to get indexed, but not sure how to do this if I need to set the gallery pages with the thumbnails on it to noindex. Would it be smart to set the pages to "noindex, follow" or "index, nofollow" or do you have any other suggestions?
Content Development | | cmaseattle0 -
Duplicate Pages Different Content
Will duplicate pages different content hurt rankings/seo E-commerce Site is plugin style with WYSIWYG editor allowing for full customization, all pages are setup with basic default content. Ive created custom pages with content/keywords to begin seo on them I have two pages www.domain.com/sports/hockey and www.domain.com/nhl-tickets The first url is default, with a single H1tag, + Default Meta+Title tags, the second is the content rich page, and structured properly, both of which show up on the site, should I block the first url from displaying at all? The reason I am asking is because ive also setup breadcrumb links, which makes all of these category url's accessible on the site, I cannot edit breadcrumb links, we can either have them there or remove them. Thank you Very Much!!
Content Development | | TP_Marketing0 -
Is this facebook a paid for page please advise
Hi i would love to have a commercial facebook page instead of my personal name, i would like to have my company name on facebook like the huffington post but not sure if you have to pay for it or not here is the huffington facebook page, can anyone let me know if this is a paid for page http://www.facebook.com/HuffPostUK
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Page hidden in SERPs
As well as unique content, we carry press releases (contracts with PR companies) Some pages don't show up in SERPs - but sometimes a few or even hundreds of other sites do. At the end of the search, google shows this: In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 109 already displayed.
Content Development | | loopyal
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. When the search is repeated, using that link, the page often shows up in the top 10 or top 20. I believe this is a site problem, not a page problem. We are often one of the first to publish the release.0 -
Deleting a Wordpress Blog Page with no inbound links?
What are the concerns I should have in deleting a WordPress Page that is no longer relevant or a duplicate? Note: This would be a page that does not have any inbound links to it.
Content Development | | CMCD0