To index or not to index search pages - (Panda related)
-
Hi Mozzers
I have a WordPress site with Relevanssi the search engine plugin, free version.
Questions:
-
Should I let Google index my site's SERPS? I am scared the page quality is to thin, and then Panda bear will get angry.
-
This plugin (or my previous search engine plugin) created many of these "no-results" uris: /?s=no-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Ano-results%3Akids+wall&cat=no-results&pg=6 I have added a robots.txt rule to disallow these pages and did a GWT URL removal request. But links to these pages are still being displayed in Google's SERPS under "repeat the search with the omitted results included" results.
So will this affect me negatively or are these results harmless?
-
What exactly is an omitted result? As I understand it is that Google found a link to a page they but can't display it because I block GoogleBot.
Thanx in advance guys.
-
-
Google would prefer in most cases not to index search results. What we find best is a method called Tag Seeding, where essentially you are linking to a set of known tag pages that help Google find the relevant categorical results. This helps prevent Google from finding an unending number of pages while, at the same time, allowing you to expose users to your content in an organized fashion.
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
-
Index, follow on a paginated page with a different rel=canonical URL
Hello, I have a question about meta robots ="index, follow" and rel=canonical on category page pagination. Should the sorted page be <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"></meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> since the rel="canonical" is pointing to a separate page that is different from the URL? Any thoughts on this topic would be awesome. Thanks. Main Category Page
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice
https://www.site.com/category/
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow"><link rel="canonical" href="https: www.site.com="" category="" "=""></link rel="canonical" href="https:></meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> Sorted Page
https://www.site.com/category/?p=2&dir=asc&order=name
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow"=""><link rel="canonical" href="https: www.site.com="" category="" ?p="2""></link rel="canonical" href="https:></meta name="robots" content="index,> As you can see, the meta robots is telling Google to index https://www.site.com/category/?p=2&dir=asc&order=name , yet saying the canonical page is https://www.site.com/category/?p=2 .0 -
Targeting two search terms with same intent - one or more pages for SEO benefits?
I'd like some professional opinions on this topic. I'm looking after the SEO for my friends site, and there are two main search terms we are looking to boost in search engines. The company sells Billboard advertising space to businesses in the UK. Here are the two search terms we're looking to target: Billboard Advertising - 880 searches P/M Outdoor Advertising - 720 searches P/M It would usually make sense to make a separate page to target the keyword "billboard advertising" on its own fully optimised landing page with more information on the topic and with a targeted URL: www.website.com/billboard-advertising/ and the homepage to target "outdoor advertising" as it's an outdoor advertising agency. But there's a problem, as both search terms are highly related and have the same intent, I'm worried that if we create a separate page to target the billboard advertising, it will conflict with the homepage targeting outdoor advertising. Also, the main competitors who are currently ranked position 1-3, are ranking with their home pages and not optimised landing pages to target the exact search term "billboard advertising". Any advice on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jseddon920 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Link Removal Request Sent to Google, Bad Pages Gone from Index But Still Appear in Webmaster Tools
| On June 14th the number of indexed pages for our website on Google Webmaster tools increased from 676 to 851 pages. Our ranking and traffic have taken a big hit since then. The increase in indexed pages is linked to a design upgrade of our website. The upgrade was made June 6th. No new URLS were added. A few forms were changed, the sidebar and header were redesigned. Also, Google Tag Manager was added to the site. My SEO provider, a reputable firm endorsed by MOZ, believes the extra 175 pages indexed by Google, pages that do not offer much content, may be causing the ranking decline. My developer submitted a page removal request to Google via Webmaster tools around June 20th. Now when a Google search is done for site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com 851 results display. Would these extra pages cause a drop in ranking? My developer issued a link removal request for these pages around June 20th and the number in the Google search results appeared to drop to 451 for a few days, now it is back up to 851. In Google Webmaster Tools it is still listed as 851 pages. My ranking drop more and more everyday. At the end of displayed Google Search Results for site:www.nyc-officespace-leader.comvery strange URSL are displaying like:www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/wp-content/plugins/... If we can get rid of these issues should ranking return to what it was before?I suspect this is an issue with sitemaps and Robot text. Are there any firms or coders who specialize in this? My developer has really dropped the ball. Thanks everyone!! Alan |
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Howcome Google is indexing one day 2500 pages and the other day only 150 then 2000 again ect?
This is about an big affiliate website of an customer of us, running with datafeeds... Bad things about datafeeds: Duplicate Content (product descriptions) Verrryyyy Much (thin) product pages (sometimes better to noindex, i know, but this customer doesn't want to do that)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
Best way to re-order page elements based on search engine users
Both versions of the page has essentially same content, but in different order. One is for users coming from Google (and google bot) and other is for everybody else. Questions: Is it cloaking? what will be the best way to re-order elements on the page: totally different style sheets for each version, or calling in different divs in a same style sheet? Is there any better way to re-order elements based on search engine? Let me make it clear again: the content is same for everyone, just in different order for visitors coming from Google and everybody else. Don't ask me the reason behind it (executive orders!!)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StickyRiceSEO0 -
Search results all going to home page
I'm an author, and after doing a search for one of my books I realized that no matter what was searched, the user was getting lead to the homepage. please see the attached picture. How do I fix this and is this hurting my SEO? Capture.JPG Capture1.JPG
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StreetwiseReports0 -
How to resolve Duplicate Page Content issue for root domain & index.html?
SEOMoz returns a Duplicate Page Content error for a website's index page, with both domain.com and domain.com/index.html isted seperately. We had a rewrite in the htacess file, but for some reason this has not had an impact and we have since removed it. What's the best way (in an HTML website) to ensure all index.html links are automatically redirected to the root domain and these aren't seen as two separate pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ContentWriterMicky0