undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Discover top competitors’ winning content
    What's new

    Discover top competitors’ winning content

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    What is your Brand Authority?
    Moz

    What is your Brand Authority?

    Check yours now
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Should pages of old news articles be indexed?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Should pages of old news articles be indexed?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
3
6
1.2k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • theLotter
    theLotter last edited by Aug 29, 2012, 5:28 AM

    My website published about 3 news articles a day and is set up so that old news articles can be accessed through a "back" button with articles going to page 2 then page 3 then page 4, etc... as new articles push them down.  The pages include a link to the article and a short snippet.

    I was thinking I would want Google to index the first 3 pages of articles, but after that the pages are not worthwhile.  Could these pages harm me and should they be noindexed and/or added as a canonical URL to the main news page - or is leaving them as is fine because they are so deep into the site that Google won't see them, but I also won't be penalized for having week content?

    Thanks for the help!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • gcdtechnologies
      gcdtechnologies @theLotter last edited by Aug 30, 2012, 3:50 AM Aug 29, 2012, 7:39 AM

      Ah I'm sorry I misinterpreted you - so it's essentially about pagination? Rel Next/Rel Previous is probably the best way to go - the first page will be given the equity and the pages won't have to compete with each other for ranking. Google have a pretty comprehensive guide: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663744

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • theLotter
        theLotter @gcdtechnologies last edited by Aug 29, 2012, 7:12 AM Aug 29, 2012, 7:12 AM

        Thanks Alice, but my question is about the page where the article is linked from not the actual article itself ( which 100% is staying indexed )

        gcdtechnologies 1 Reply Last reply Aug 29, 2012, 7:39 AM Reply Quote 0
        • gcdtechnologies
          gcdtechnologies last edited by Aug 29, 2012, 6:16 AM Aug 29, 2012, 6:16 AM

          Hi Sara,

          If the articles are time sensitive but high quality, I wouldn't noindex them. They could still have value in the future (for example, if a related story comes up, you can link back to the old article). You might also find ways to refresh or recycle them, such as adding a follow up, updating the information, or promoting a really great post "From Our Archives". They could also be a good longtail source of traffic for people looking for information on past news/events.

          Google will be able to index old and outdated articles, but it's smart enough to know that these posts are old and outdated and therefore won't assign big chunks of page rank to them.

          However if the articles are low quality, I would take action to improve the good content/poor content ratio. The ideal situation would be to improve the articles themselves, but that might not be a feasible solution if you've been publishing three per day for an extended period of time. I would conduct a thorough audit to see what content could be saved/improved and what content should be deleted. I wouldn't bother with no index or canonicals - if it's good content leave it up and let it be indexed, and if it's bad content that can't be saved, remove it.

          Finally if you are redirecting old articles, I would be careful about where they redirect to. Ideally you'd want to redirect from a low quality article to a high quality article on the same subject. A big increase in URLs pointing to the main news page could raise a red flag, and could force readers to look for information unnecessarily.

          Good luck!

          theLotter 1 Reply Last reply Aug 29, 2012, 7:12 AM Reply Quote 0
          • theLotter
            theLotter @Gamer07 last edited by Aug 29, 2012, 6:09 AM Aug 29, 2012, 6:09 AM

            The news articles themselves are not thin content, but the general pages are relatively thin because they only consist of the link + snippet.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Gamer07
              Gamer07 last edited by Aug 29, 2012, 6:00 AM Aug 29, 2012, 5:59 AM

              Are they all thin content? If not, then I don't think it's necessary to NOINDEX them. If you think some of them don't have any real value, you could specifically NOINDEX them(and not all together). Google will crawl those pages no matter how deep they are, as long as they are accessible.

              theLotter 1 Reply Last reply Aug 29, 2012, 6:09 AM Reply Quote 0
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • shabbirmoosa

                Rel canonical tag from shopify page to wordpress site page

                shopify wordpress canonical

                We have pages on our shopify site example - https://shop.example.com/collections/cast-aluminum-plaques/products/cast-aluminum-address-plaque That we want to put a rel canonical tag on to direct to our wordpress site page - https://www.example.com/aluminum-plaques/ We have links form the wordpress page to the shop page, and over time ahve found that google has ranked the shop pages over the wp pages, which we do not want. So we want to put rel canonical tags on the shop pages to say the wp page is the authority. I hope that makes sense, and I would appreciate your feeback and best solution. Thanks! Is that possible?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 31, 2024, 4:19 PM | shabbirmoosa
                0
              • kbates

                Trying to get Google to stop indexing an old site!

                Howdy, I have a small dilemma. We built a new site for a client, but the old site is still ranking/indexed and we can't seem to get rid of it. We setup a 301 from the old site to the new one, as we have done many times before, but even though the old site is no longer live and the hosting package has been cancelled, the old site is still indexed. (The new site is at a completely different host.) We never had access to the old site, so we weren't able to request URL removal through GSC. Any guidance on how to get rid of the old site would be very appreciated. BTW, it's been about 60 days since we took these steps. Thanks, Kirk

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 29, 2019, 12:34 PM | kbates
                0
              • AshShep1

                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 | Aug 7, 2014, 11:25 AM | AshShep1
                0
              • RG_SEO

                Best practice for retiring old product pages

                We’re a software company. Would someone be able to help me with a basic process for retiring old product pages and re-directing the SEO value to new pages. We are retiring some old products to focus on new products. The new software has much similar functionality to the old software, but has more features. How can we ensure that the new pages get the best start in life? Also, what is the best way of doing this for users? Our plan currently is to: Leave the old pages up initially with a message to the user that the old software has been retired. There will also be a message explaining that the user might be interested in one of our new products and a link to the new pages. When traffic to these pages reduces, then we will delete these pages and re-direct them to the homepage. Has anyone got any recommendations for how we could approach this differently? One idea that I’m considering is to immediately re-direct the old product pages to the new pages. I was wondering if we could then provide a message to the user explaining that the old product has been retired but that the new improved product is available. I’d also be interested in pointing the re-directs to the new product pages that are most relevant rather than the homepage, so that they get the value of the old links. I’ve found in the past that old retirement pages for products can outrank the new pages as until you 301 them then all the links and authority flow to these pages. Any help would be very much appreciated 🙂

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 24, 2014, 4:25 PM | RG_SEO
                0
              • WebbyNabler

                Duplicate Content From Indexing of non- File Extension Page

                Google somehow has indexed a page of mine without the .html extension.  so they indexed  www.samplepage.com/page, so I am showing duplicate content because Google also see's  www.samplepage.com/page.html   How can I force google or bing or whoever to only index and see the page including the .html extension?  I know people are saying not to use the file extension on pages, but I want to, so please anybody...HELP!!!

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 6, 2013, 8:12 PM | WebbyNabler
                0
              • udemy

                Disallowed Pages Still Showing Up in Google Index. What do we do?

                We recently disallowed a wide variety of pages for www.udemy.com which we do not want google indexing (e.g., /tags or /lectures). Basically we don't want to spread our link juice around to all these pages that are never going to rank. We want to keep it focused on our core pages which are for our courses. We've added them as disallows in robots.txt, but after 2-3 weeks google is still showing them in it's index. When we lookup "site: udemy.com", for example, Google currently shows ~650,000 pages indexed... when really it should only be showing ~5,000 pages indexed. As another example, if you search for "site:udemy.com/tag", google shows 129,000 results. We've definitely added "/tag" into our robots.txt properly, so this should not be happening... Google showed be showing 0 results. Any ideas re: how we get Google to pay attention and re-index our site properly?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 25, 2012, 3:48 PM | udemy
                0
              • Peter264

                NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?

                Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page.  For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages?  Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 6, 2011, 3:18 PM | Peter264
                0
              • nicole.healthline

                Is 404'ing a page enough to remove it from Google's index?

                We set some pages to 404 status about 7 months ago, but they are still showing in Google's index (as 404's). Is there anything else I need to do to remove these?

                Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 19, 2011, 2:01 AM | nicole.healthline
                0
              Moz logo
              • Contact
              • Community
              • Free Trial
              • Terms & Privacy
              • Accessibility
              • Jobs
              • Help
              • What's New
              • News & Press
              • MozCon
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.