Should I block non-informative pages from Google's index?
-
Our site has about 1000 pages indexed, and the vast majority of them are not useful, and/or contain little content. Some of these are:
-Galleries
-Pages of images with no text except for navigation
-Popup windows that contain further information about something but contain no navigation, and sometimes only a couple sentencesMy question is whether or not I should put a noindex in the meta tags.
I think it would be good because the ratio of quality to low quality pages right now is not good at all.
I am apprehensive because if I'm blocking more than half my site from Google, won't Google see that as a suspicious or bad practice?
-
To the spiders, would the content in the lightbox be considered on the page?
-
I would discriminate these pages on the basis of income or search engine traffic rather than use their informativeness.
I have semiinformative pages that pull lots of traffic and make lots of money - and informative pages that make next to nothing.
-
More a technical answer than SEO-specific, but you could place the pop up content in a lightbox similar to your gallery items with a script like http://fancyapps.com/fancybox/, colorbox, etc. These will allow you to lightbox on page content in addition to just photos.
So you could technically have the price table displayed in the page for non-javascript enabled clients, and the lightbox script would show it when clicked, and you wouldn't have to worry about pop-up blockers or having the popup content be a separate page.
-
I know PR shaping is most commonly done with nofollows but the same core principle holds: you don't want the spiders to do something out of fear that you're "diluting" the site's value. Doing it with noindex is just as bad as nofollow, if not worse.
-
When it comes to popups, keep in mind that some users' popup blockers might prevent these from even loading. As is, I don't think it matters much whether you noindex these price list pages or not. You certainly could, as they're not going to appear in any search result, and they're not going to attract links.
I would play with ways to improve the user experience, but putting the large tables on the page probably isn't the way to do that. To me, I think a better option would be (somewhere above the fold) allowing the user to select the type (plain/patched/etc.) quantity, and other variables. They would then get a price quote (as on the bottom of the page), along with a button to continue the checkout process or otherwise continue to the next step. I'd also display the original price per item crossed out, the phrase "bulk discounts" somewhere close, and then the new price per item.
Telling people what they need to do next (it took me a while to find where to buy) and simplifying the pricing at the same time could help a lot. I also noticed that the price quote on the contact page seems to be loading inside the same cramped frame.
-
Hi there,
Sorry I didn't see this when I posted. PR sculpting generally refers to the practice of using internal nofollows - which I'm not a fan of either, not least because it doesn't work. I also agree that pages that users could find useful should generally remain in the index.
-
Thanks for that great information. This is a good example of what I'm taking about:
http://www.stadriemblems.com/scouting/neckerchiefs/index.htm
Under "Plain Neckerchief" click on "view pricelist" or "color chart"
So, you think a better practice would be to just include that pricelist on the same page instead?
-
Hi Marisa,
To determine which pages should be noindexed, first ask yourself first whether a user would want to land on the URL in question. Second, is the URL receiving traffic as an organic landing page right now? Third, does the content serve a purpose to the user? Does it need to exist?
If the answer to all of the above questions is "no," then go ahead and noindex the page. If you answer yes to one of the above, some evaluation is in order. Can you add content, improve the navigation and appearance, or make the page more useful rather than noindexing it?
Generally you can enhance gallery pages for search engines and users by labeling/captioning the images and making sure the alt text is in order. On category pages, add some content, label products, and provide them with a next action.
Do the popups contain useful, non-repeating, or important info? If so, can the content be placed on the page somewhere instead? The only way I would use a popup and noindex it is if the content in the popup is optional and duplicated, such as the often-seen "What's This?" that explains a field or term that is repeated across the site, and each instance makes a new URL.
I've never heard of anyone running into problems with Google for noindexing too much stuff. You're essentially just telling them that the page is not good for users to find. You will, however, tend to improve organic traffic and user experience by making each page useful and adding an appropriate amount of content.
Hope that helps,
Carson
-
I'm not a fan of this (commonly called page rank shaping). First, you're trying to tell Google what to index and what to ignore. Second, how do you know those pages have no value? What if I found an image in your gallery and linked to it off my blog? Now you're missing out on link juice. It might not be viewed as suspicious, but it won't help your site any.
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
-
What tools and metrics do you use to show a topic's search interest over time?
I have a foundation repair client that is down in leads for the structural repair portion of their business. They have not lost any major rankings, but leads are down compared to last year. They asked if people are searching for this type of work less this year compared to last. I checked Google Trends and Keyword Planner data but found very different results. Is either of these tools accurate, or is there a better tool to use?
Algorithm Updates | | DigitalDivision1 -
Is anyone else's ranking jumping?
Rankings have been jumping across 3 of our websites since about 24 October. Is anyone seeing similar? For example ... jumps from position 5 to 20 on one day, then back to 5 for 3 days and then back to 20 for a day I'm trying to figure out if it's algorithm based or if my rank checker has gone mad. I can't replicate the same results if I search incognito or in a new browser, everything always looks stable in the SERPs if I do the search myself
Algorithm Updates | | Marketing_Today0 -
Do the referring domains matter a lot in back-links? Google's stand?
Hi, It's a known fact about quality of back-links than quantity. Still domains are heavily different from links. Multiple domains are huge comparing to multiple links. Taking an average, how much does 'number of referring domains" boost website authority? I am not speaking about low quality domains, just number of domains including which are irrelevant to the topic or industry. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What does it exactly means when Google brings the "brand name" to the beggining of the page title in search results when it was actually given at the end?
We see many times...page titles starts with "brand name: page for etc" where actually "brand name" has been given at the end and keywords at beginning. Why does Google make this change? I noticed this happens when similar title tags are used by multiple websites for high difficulty keywords. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google keyword tool
I was quite happy with google keyword tool for basic and accurate searches for keywords. Can anyone suggests a new tool that will give accurate search volume on google ( country specific ) I am not interest in info for adwords, and find a keyword planner tool way out in traffic results, compared to Keyword tool. Is the keyword tool completely gone?
Algorithm Updates | | summer3000 -
Personalization for non logged in users
My question is, how does google personalize the search results for non logged in users and incoqnito searches? I already know about the location personalization whether you're logged in or not and auto complete. But, is personalization still helping in the other cases. Does for example Google keep track of your I.P and then match suggestions that way? Additionally, any other resources would be great.
Algorithm Updates | | PeterRota0 -
Organic CTR on Google - KPI?
Hi, I was hoping for some advice on my keyword analysis I have completed. So far I have identified a hitlist of high volume keyword associated to the industry I operate in. As well as this, I'm monitoring our keyword positions within the SERPS. Question: Is there a CTR metric available depending on the position your keyword ranks within Google? i.e. If I am position 3 and looking to move to position 1 on a specific keyword, what amount of incremental search volume would be geneerated to my website? PResumably the CTR would also depend on what market you operate in too I am also going on a 65% / 35% Organic/PPC split based on keyword search volume so to give me a true reflection of the search volume available... Any advice on this would be much appreciated... Simon
Algorithm Updates | | simonsw0 -
Google place page Images
Is there any real difference in uploading an images directly to your google places page or linking an image from another site? I have heard that you get better results if you upload a photo to photo bucket then to insider pages then post that link to your google places page. To me it just seems a bit odd to do things this way. I get that it's suppose to give you more back links however I don't think it would necessarily be relevant or useful for the user. Any thoughts??
Algorithm Updates | | christinarule0