Accidental Noindex/Mis-Canonicalisation - Please help!
-
Hi everybody,
I was hoping somebody might be able to help as this is an issue my team and I have never come across before.
A client of ours recently migrated to a new site design. 301 redirects were properly implemented and the transition was fairly smooth.
However, we realised soon after that a sub-section of pages had either one or both of the following errors:
- They featured a canonical tag pointing to the wrong page
- They featured the 'meta noindex' tag
After realising this, both the canonicals and the noindex tags were immediately removed. However, Google crawled the site while these were in place and the pages subsequently dropped out of Google's index.
We re-submitted the affected pages to Google's index and used WMT to 'Fetch' the pages as Google. We have also since 'allowed' the pages in the robots.txt file as an extra measure.
We found that the pages which just had the noindex tag were immediately re-indexed, while the pages which featured the noindex tag and which were mis-canonicalised are still not being re-indexed.
Can anyone think of a reason why this might be the case? One of the pages which featured both tags was one of our most important organic landing pages, so we're eager to resolve this.
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!
-
I'm not sure how helpful it is, in the sense of being good news, but I did something like this to one of my sites on purpose once, and wrote it up:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/catastrophic-canonicalization
A couple of tips:
(1) I think what Oleg is saying, which I agree with is that if Page A had a canonical to Page B, instead of just removing the canonical tag, put in a canonical tag pointing from Page A to Page A. Sometimes, the self-referencing canonical will help over-ride the old/bad canonical.
(2) Fetch is a good bet, but I'd also re-submit an XML sitemap with just the "bad" URLs. It's not a cure-all, but it can help nudge Google.
Unfortunately, it really can take time to sort out. Make sure your internal links are correct as well. You could temporarily build new internal links (list a few resources on your home-page, for example) to push link-juice temporarily. You could also post the proper URLs on Twitter/FB, etc., to kick them a bit. Of course, that only works for a few pages, not for hundreds.
-
Yes it may just be a waiting game as Oleg mentioned. But perhaps to help speed up the process you could link to some of those pages from a higher level page (like the homepage or a department landing page).Don't spam tho, no more than 100 links on a page (including navigation/footer etc).
I'd also recommend having an XML sitemap with all the URLs of your website on it. You'll need to upload this to Google Webmaster Tools as well.
When they do get re-indexed keep an eye out for how they have been indexed; so look at what keywords bring up that page in SERPs (Raven Tools is an easy way to track keywords and see which URL comes up). If you find that 'odd' pages are being indexed for a certain keyword search you should do some link building specific to the keyword you want ranked pointing to the page/URL you want ranked.
Good luck!
Davinia
-
Hi Oleg,
Thanks for your response. Unfortunately the canonical URL was another of our main organic landing pages so a redirect wouldn't be appropriate in this situation.
I agree that it's just a matter of time but it's frustrating that Google has crawled the site since we updated the pages and still hasn't re-indexed the page in question.
-
Can you set a canonical/redirect on the page that was incorrect pointing back to the correct page?
i.e. page1.html had wrong canonical to pgae1.html -> change pgae1.html canonical to page1.html
Overall, I think it's just a matter of time before Google is able to recrawl and fix itself... it's odd that canonical + noindex is slower than just noindex. Do whatever you can to get G to recrawl the pages.
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
-
Complicated Title Tag Issues. Experts, Please Help!
Hey there Moz community! This is the first time I ask a question here so please forgive me if I miss any forum etiquette. I am managing SEO for an educational site which is built in React Js, and so far much of the job has been keyword research and site optimization. The site still has slow PageSpeed though. The Issues - 4 weeks ago we published 20 or so content pieces, I had pre-prepared title tags and meta descriptions. But when we released the content there was a programming error that made all of the pages show another title tag for all 20 pages instead of the pre-prepared individual title tags. I noticed this after 3 days and the issue was fixed within 6 days, but by then Google had crawled and indexed the pages. And now I can't get Google to change to the pre-prepared tags no matter what I do! I've tried changing the content, changing the URL of one of the pages, and I've sent Google spiders to re-crawl the pages multiple times. The super weird thing is that the correct title tag shows in the 'navigation bar/tabs bar' on google chrome: But NOT when I view the source code for the page: Yesterday I was taking a walk in the park and I just couldn't stop thinking about it (it is really starting to get to me by now since nothing works), so I ran back home and looked closely at one of these pages in the Google search console. And I noticed something I hadn't seen before… BOTH of the title tags can be found in the HTML: Pre-prepared title tag: <title></strong>UK Seat Belt & Car Seat Laws: The Definitive Guide<strong></title> The other title tag (in src section): title=Ace%20The%20DMV%20Permit%20Test%20%26%20Get%20Your%20License Could this be the problem or what do you think? I've understood that Google has automated title tags and that they can choose their own if they think it fits better, but the title tags aren't even close to describing the topic as it is now so it doesn’t make any sense. All answers are greatly appreciated! Your advice is life-saving for a learner like me. P.S. I love SEO but it can be very frustrating sometimes! Thank you very much, Leo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Leowa0 -
Site traffic/sales have plummeted
About 2 months ago we relaunched our Ecommerce store on Shopify Plus and have since seen a massive drop in traffic, sales and our most valuable pages are nowhere to be found. Also, GWT is showing that Google is indexing about half of our pages and none of the images are being indexed. We did extensive keyword research, created/implemented a keyword framework, wrote brand new category/product page content, implemented schema markup, optimized our blog content and even did link building where we got some 90+ DA links. We are literally at a loss for what is causing this. Our experience with Shopify Plus has been very poor because it doesn't even do basic SEO stuff so we've had to do a lot of workarounds to make it "SEO friendly". Has anyone else ever switched to Shopify Plus and had similar issues? Is there a silver bullet that you can think of that we are missing that could get the site being indexed/ranking again?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Aquatell0 -
Blog Content In different language not indexed - HELP PLEASE!
I have an ecommerce site in English and a blog that is in Malay language. We have started the blog 3 weeks ago with about 20-30 articles written. Ecommerce is using MAgento CMS and Blog is wordpress. URL Structure: Ecommerce: www.example.com Blog: www.example.com/blog Blog category: www.example.com/blog/category/ However, google is indexing all pages including blog category but not individual post that is in Malay language. What could be the issue here? PLEASE help me!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
Which is better /section/ or section/index.php?
I have noticed that Google has started to simply link to /section/ as opposed to /section/index.php and I haven't changed any canonical tags etc. I have looked at my pages moz authority for the two /section/ = 28/100
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes
/section/index.php = 42/100 How would I go about transferring the authority to /section/ from /section/index.php to hopefully help me in my organic serp positions etc. Any insight would be great 🐵0 -
Why do my https pages index while noindexed?
I have some tag pages on one of my sites that I meta noindexed. This worked for the http version, which they are canonical'd to but now the https:// version is indexing. The https version is both noindexed and has a canonical to the http version, but they still show up! I even have wordpress set up to redirect all https: to http! For some reason these pages are STILL showing in the SERPS though. Any experience or advice would be greatly appreciated. Example page: https://www.michaelpadway.com/tag/insurance-coverage/ Thanks all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
DMOZ help
So yesterday I got a DMOZ editor account. I would like to know if Google indexes the editor profile pages on DMOZ: http://www.dmoz.org/public/profile?editor= here are some examples http://www.dmoz.org/public/profile?editor=thehelper http://www.dmoz.org/public/profile?editor=raph3988 http://www.dmoz.org/public/profile?editor=skasselea I would like to know if it is worth while to build up this page so it will pass link juice. And can anyone tell me how frequently Google crawls for new editors (if that's possible?)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raph39880 -
Question about 301 redirect for trailing / ?
I am cleaning up a fairly large site. Some pages have a trailing slash on the end some don't. Some of the existing backlinks built used a trailing slash in the url and some didn't. We aren't concerned with picking a particular one but just want to get one set and stick to it from now on. I am wondering, would I clean this up within the same redirect in the htaccess file that takes care of the www and non www? example RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PEnterprises
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] I currently use that to redirect the www. to the non www as you can see. However here is what I was confused about. Would this code be enough to redirect ALL pages with a / to the ones without? or would I also need to add another code (so there is 2) to my htaccess like below? RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain.com/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com$1 [L,R=301] That way, now, even the non www pages with a trailing slash will redirect to the non www without the trailing slash. Hopefully you understand what I am getting at. I just want to redirect EVERYTHING to the non www WITHOUT a / Thank you Jake0 -
Domain Authority / Page Authority
I manage a site that has home page authority of 69, and overall domain authority of 63. To improve domain authority, would it help to remove some of the pages that have 0 page authority? There are over 1,000 pages to this site, and I always thought that the more pages you have, the better (generally). But, does it actually hurt the site to have pages that Google perceives as having 0 page authority, or does this have no bearing? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DiscoverBoating0