Remove internal site SERPS from Google Index?
-
1. Internal Serp pages did not have a robots meta tag
2. As a result, client site has thousands (~4,400) of internal site SERP pages in the Google index.
3. We added the NoIndex, Follow attribute to all internal SERPS
4. We Disallowed: domain.com/internal-search-operator in Robots.txt
5. No new SERP pages are being indexed, but the other 4000 something that were already there are still in the index weeks later.
6. The pages are dynamically created and still work, so I can't use the Remove Content tool from google, because the pages don't 404.
Is there any way to get these pages out of the index besides just waiting and hoping google eventuall drops them?
Thanks
-
You can still submit a url removal request from GWT, because it checks for 1 of 3 things:
- 404 header response code
- NOINDEX meta tag
- Robots.txt disallow rule
So even if its not 404 Google will still do the removal.
-
You can create a formal request to Google using Webmaster Tools and tell them the URLs or list of URLs that you'd like removed from the index. Whether or not they actually remove them is a completely different story.
-
I should have explained it what I meant by SERPS better.
These pages are generated by doing a text search on the site. (Magento) So yes, they are product listings, but obviously most queries are different, so the dynamically created pages are all unique but useless.
Thanks for the idea about rel=canonical them back to the search page - I will look into that.
-
Note: By SERPs I'm assuming you're referring to Search Results within the site (e.g. a product listing) and not actual Google SERPs.
If so, it sounds like it could be a case for canonical. If the pages are all site.com/search.htm?searchterm=xxxx&page=y&rows=100 kind of thing you could canonical them all back down to search.htm.
If you're not familiar with canonical here's a YouMoz post that explains it pretty well:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/complete-guide-to-rel-canonical-how-to-and-why-not
Based on my experience in the past the canonicalized pages will eventually 'disappear' from the index (not really, but Google doesn't display them anymore) in time. They would also eventually fall out already with what you've done in regards to noindex no follow etc., but I've found it takes longer.
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
-
Virtual URL Google not indexing?
Dear all, We have two URLs: The main URL which is crawled both by GSC and where Moz assigns our keywords is: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/ The second one is called a virtual url by our developpers: https://andipaeditions.com/banksy/signedandunsignedprintsforsale/ This is currently not indexed by Google. We have been linking to the second URL and I am unable to see if this is passing juice/anything on to the main one /banksy/ Is it a canonical? The /banksy/ is the one that is being picked up in serps/by Moz and worry that the two similar URLs are splitting the signal. Should I redirect from the second to the first? Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | TAT1000 -
Removing non www and index.php
Hi, I'm green when it comes to altering the htaccess file to remove non www and index.php. I think I've managed to redirect the urls to www however not sure if I've managed to remove the index.php. I'm pasting the contents of the htaccess file here maybe someone can identify if I have unwanted lines of code and if it is up to standard (there are a lot of comments in #) not sure if needed but I've left them as I don't want to screw up anything. Thanks 🙂 @package Joomla @copyright Copyright (C) 2005 - 2016 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved. @license GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt READ THIS COMPLETELY IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE THIS FILE! The line 'Options +FollowSymLinks' may cause problems with some server configurations. It is required for the use of mod_rewrite, but it may have already been set by your server administrator in a way that disallows changing it in this .htaccess file. If using it causes your site to produce an error, comment it out (add # to the beginning of the line), reload your site in your browser and test your sef urls. If they work, then it has been set by your server administrator and you do not need to set it here. No directory listings IndexIgnore * Can be commented out if causes errors, see notes above. Options +FollowSymlinks
On-Page Optimization | | KeithBugeja
Options -Indexes Mod_rewrite in use. RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/index.php/
RewriteRule ^index.php/(.*) /$1 [R,L] Begin - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits. If you experience problems on your site then comment out the operations listed below by adding a # to the beginning of the line. This attempts to block the most common type of exploit attempts on Joomla! Block any script trying to base64_encode data within the URL. RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode[^(]([^)]) [OR] Block any script that includes a0 -
Google Console returning 0 pages as being indexed
HI there, I submitted my site notebuster.net to Search Console over a month ago and it is showing 0 pages as being indexed under the index status report. I know this isn't right as I can see that in google alone by typing in (site:notebusters.net) there are 113 pages indexed. Any idea why this might be? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | CosiCrawley0 -
WMT Fetch as Google
Is there any benefits in using 'Fetch as Google' in WMT and then submitting for indexing? I have a page which I'm trying to get to rank so far with no luck is it likely to help or could it hinder? Please speak from experience not hearsay 🙂 Many Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | seoman100 -
SEO for E-Commerce Sites
Hi Everybody, I have two e-commerce sites just launched with not much content at the moment just user login pages for the clients to avail the service. The management is not interested to put much content there i think. Maximum what they will be putting only 5 pages of content in total, not more than this. Any practical tips how to optimize such sites especially when there is not much content. Best
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
Where does Google say this?
Just came across this article: http://www.searchmarketingstandard.com/tips-for-avoiding-thin-content And, it states, "Google says that it will ignore pages with less than 200 words of body text " I submitted a comment to the author, but was wondering in the meantime if anyone knows where Google says this?
On-Page Optimization | | nicole.healthline0 -
Internal link to the home page
When building menus and other internal links, should the link to the home page be http://www.domain.com/ or http://www.domain.com/index.html or does it matter? Best,
On-Page Optimization | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Title not showing in Serps
Sorry if I've posted in the wrong section; in a nutshell my page title for 2x key terms (that I've noticed) is not showing in the Serps for my listing. Instead, the keyphrase I'm searching for shows up, and in one case my site name is appended. Can anyone tell me why this is? If I take a stab in the dark, i'd plum for Gg not thinking my page title is up to scratch for the particular search term.... but that's just a punt. Any help, greatly appreciated. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | newstd1000