Https-pages still in the SERP's
-
Hi all,
my problem is the following: our CMS (self-developed) produces https-versions of our "normal" web pages, which means duplicate content.
Our it-department put the <noindex,nofollow>on the https pages, that was like 6 weeks ago.</noindex,nofollow>
I check the number of indexed pages once a week and still see a lot of these https pages in the Google index. I know that I may hit different data center and that these numbers aren't 100% valid, but still... sometimes the number of indexed https even moves up.
Any ideas/suggestions? Wait for a longer time? Or take the time and go to Webmaster Tools to kick them out of the index?
Another question: for a nice query, one https page ranks No. 1. If I kick the page out of the index, do you think that the http page replaces the No. 1 position? Or will the ranking be lost? (sends some nice traffic :-))...
thanx in advance
-
Hi Irving,
yes, you are right. The https login page is the "problem", other pages that I visit after are staying on https, as all the links on these page are https links. So you could surf all the pages on the domain in a https mode, if you visited the login page before
I spoke to our it department about this problem and they told me it would take time to program our CMS different. My boss then told me to find another, cheaper solution - so I came up with the noindex,nofollow.
So, do you see another solution whithout having to ask our it department again? They< are always very busy and almost have no time for nobody
-
Hi Malcolm,
thankx for the help. Before we put the noindex, nofollow on these pages, I thought about using the rel=canonical.
To be honest, I did not choose rel=canonical because I think that the noindex,nofollow ia a stronger sign for Google, and that the rel=canonical is more like a hint, which G does not always follow... but sure, i can be wrong!
You are saying that the noindex could end worse. The https-pages only contain links to https-pages, think of these pages like "normal" pages, same content, link structure etc. etc. Every URL just is a https, internal, external....
So I thought the noindex,nofollow would not hurt the http pages, because they cannot be found on the https ones - what do you think?
-
Is there a reason you're supporting both http and https versions of every page? If not, 301 redirect to either http or https for each page. I'd only leave pages that need to be secure as https, e.g. purchase pages. Non-secure pages are generally a better user experience in terms of load time since the user can use cached files from previous pages and non-encrypted pages are more lightweight.
If you're out to support both for those secure users who like https everywhere, I'd go with Malcolm's solution and rel canonical to the version you'd like to have indexed rather than using noindex nofollow.
-
do you have absolute links on your site that are keeping https?
For example, if you go to a secure login page and then click a homepage navigation link on the secure https page do you see the homepage link going back to http or staying on https?
That is usually the cause of this problem you should look into that. I would not manually request removal of the pages in WMT i would just fix the problem and let google update it itself.
-
have you tried canonicalising the http version?
Using a noindex nofollow rule could end up being worse as you are telling Google not to follow the pages or index them and this will include both http and https.
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
-
URL with query string being indexed over it's parent page?
I noticed earlier this week that this page - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/bomb-threats-and-suspicious-packages?channel=care was being indexed instead of this page - https://www.ihasco.co.uk/courses/detail/bomb-threats-and-suspicious-packages for its various keywords We have rel=canonical tags correctly set up and all internal links to these pages with query strings are nofollow, so why is this page being indexed? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
Technical SEO | | iHasco0 -
Our client's site was owned by former employee who took over the site. What should be done? Is there a way to preserve all the SEO work?
A client had a member of the team leave on bad terms. This wasn't something that was conveyed to us at all, but recently it came up when the distraught former employee took control of the domain and locked everyone out. At first, this was assumed to be a hack, but eventually it was revealed that one of the company starters who unhappily left the team owned the domain all along and is now holding it hostage. Here's the breakdown: -Every page aside from the homepage is now gone and serving a 404 response code -The site is out of our control -The former employee is asking for a $1 million ransom to sell the domain back -The homepage is a "countdown clock" that isn't actively counting down, but claims that something exciting is happening in 3 days and lists a contact email. The question is how we can save the client's traffic through all this turmoil. Whether buying a similar domain and starting from square one and hoping we can later redirect the old site's pages after getting it back. Or maybe we have a legal claim here that we do not see even though the individual is now the owner of the site. Perhaps there's a way to redirect the now defunct pages to a new site somehow? Any ideas are greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
What should I do with a large number of 'pages not found'?
One of my client sites lists millions of products and 100s or 1000s are de-listed from their inventory each month and removed from the site (no longer for sale). What is the best way to handle these pages/URLs from an SEO perspective? There is no place to use a 301. 1. Should we implement 404s for each one and put up with the growing number of 'pages not found' shown in Webmaster Tools? 2. Should we add them to the Robots.txt file? 3. Should we add 'nofollow' into all these pages? Or is there a better solution? Would love some help with this!
Technical SEO | | CuriousCatDigital0 -
Lots of Pages Dropped Out of Google's Index?
Until yesterday, my website had about 1200 pages indexed in Google. I did lots of changes: removed low quality content, rewrote passable content to make it better, wrote high quality content, got lots of likes and shares on social networks, etc. Now this morning I see that out of 1252 pages submitted, only 691 are indexed. Is that a temporary situation related to the recent updates? Anyone seeing this? What should I interpret about this?
Technical SEO | | sbrault740 -
New domain's Sitemap.xml file loaded to old domain - how does this effect SEO?
I have a client who recently changed their domain when they redesigned their site. The client wanted the old site to remain live for existing customers with links to the new domain. I guess as a workaround, the developer loaded the new domain's sitemap.xml file to the old domain. What SEO ramifications would this have if any on the primary (new) domain?
Technical SEO | | julesae0 -
Does adding Tool Tips to a site hurt it's SEO?
I'm wanting to add tool tips to my site as it's intended for non-technical people that are wanting high tech equipment and services. I thought that by adding tool tips, I could clear any confusion they may have about a particular word right there rather then them having to search for what it means. I did some research online and saw that it may hurt SEO ratings but wanted to verify here first before deciding.
Technical SEO | | sDevik0 -
Blank pages in Google's webcache
Hello all, Is anybody experiencing blanck page's in Google's 'Cached' view? I'm seeing just the page background and none of the content for a couple of my pages but when I click 'View Text Only' all of teh content is there. Strange! I'd love to hear if anyone else is experiencing the same. Perhaps this is something to do with the roll out of Google's updates last week?! Thanks,
Technical SEO | | A_Q
Elias0 -
Google has not indexed my site in over 4 weeks, what's the problem?
We recently put in permanent redirects to our new url, but Google seems to not want to index the new url. There was no problems with the old url and the new url is brand new so should have no 'black marks' against it. We have done everything we can think off in terms of submitting site maps, telling google our url has changed in webmaster tools, mentioning the new url on social sites etc...but still nothing. It has been over 4 weeks now since we set up the redirects to the url, any ideas why Google seems to be choosing not to index it? Thanks
Technical SEO | | cewe0