NoIndex user generated pages?
-
Hi,
I have a site, downorisitjustme (dot) com
It has over 30,000 pages in google which have been generated by people searching to check if a specific site is working or not and then possibly adding a link to a msg board to the deeplink of the results page or something which is why the pages have been picked up.
Am I best to noindex the res.php page where all the auto generated content is showing up and just have the main static pages as the only ones available to be indexed?
-
Yes, add it to the robots.txt (use a Disallow and a NoIndex statement). I did find that Bing for example has not reliably in the past honoured robots.txt (especially in the case where you have an explicit "index" tag on the page and a noindex for a URL path).
-
Thanks for the replies Gerg & Irving.
The robots.txt block/exclude I take it I can just do that to the res.php page and not have to individually for the 30k generated dynamic pages off it (probably a silly question I know but wanted to double check).
-
I'd noindex the page, block in robots.txt, make sure your sitemap.xml is not generating these URLs if automated, and if there is a main folder where all the user generated pages are then request removal of that content in Google WMT.
-
I would also exclude them via robots.txt and then push through a sitemap with your static content to "nudge" Google to recrawl your content (and hopefully drop the other pages off quickly over time).
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
-
Search Console Indexed Page Count vs Site:Search Operator page count
We launched a new site and Google Search Console is showing 39 pages have been indexed. When I perform a Site:myurl.com search I see over 100 pages that appear to be indexed. Which is correct and why is there a discrepancy? Also, Search Console Page Index count started at 39 pages on 5/21 and has not increased even though we have hundreds of pages to index. But I do see more results each week from Site:psglearning.com My site is https://wwww.psglearning.com
Technical SEO | | pdowling0 -
Page that appears on SERPs is not the page that has been optimized for users
This may seem like a pretty newbie question, but I haven't been able to find any answers to it (I may not be looking correctly). My site used to rank decently for the KW "Gold name necklace" with this page in the search results:http://www.mynamenecklace.co.uk/Products.aspx?p=302This was the page that I was working on optimizing for user experience (load time, image quality, ease of use, etc.) since this page was were users were getting to via search. A couple months ago the Google SERP's started showing this page for the same query (also ranked a little lower, but not important for this specific question):http://www.mynamenecklace.co.uk/Products.aspx?p=314Which is a white gold version of the necklaces. This is not what most users have in mind (when searching for gold name necklace) so it's much less effective and engaging.How do I tell Google to go back to old page/ give preference to older page / tell them that we have a better version of the page / etc. without having to noindex any of the content? Both of these pages have value and are for different queries, so I can't canonical them to a single page. As far as external links go, more links are pointing to the Yellow gold version and not the white gold one.Any ideas on how to remedy this?Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Don340 -
Translating Page Titles & Page Descriptions
I am working on a site that will be published in the original English, with localized versions in French, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. All the versions will use the English information architecture. As part of the process, we will be translating the page the titles and page descriptions. Translation quality will be outstanding. The client is a translation company. Each version will get at least four pairs of eyes including expert translators, editors, QA experts and proofreaders. My question is what special SEO instructions should be issued to translators re: the page titles and page descriptions. (We have to presume the translators know nothing about SEO.) I was thinking of: stick to the character counts for titles and descriptions make sure the title and description work together avoid over repetition of keywords page titles (over-optimization peril) think of the descriptions as marketing copy try to repeat some title phrases in the description (to get the bolding and promote click though) That's the micro stuff. The macro stuff: We haven't done extensive keyword research for the other languages. Most of the clients are in the US. The other language versions are more a demo of translation ability than looking for clients elsewhere. Are we missing something big here?
Technical SEO | | DanielFreedman0 -
Should I noindex, follow categories?
Hey Everyone, A simple question (hopefully). Should I check or uncheck the noindex, follow setting for categories on our site? We've got about 5-6 but they aren't anything that people should know or would help in SEO. For example, one category is "featured content" and another is "what's happening." Checking them dictate where a post goes on the site. I'm pretty sure it should be checked, but I wanted to check with the experts first 🙂 http://d.pr/i/jtrc
Technical SEO | | ttb0 -
Indexed pages and current pages - Big difference?
Our website shows ~22k pages in the sitemap but ~56k are showing indexed on Google through the "site:" command. Firstly, how much attention should we paying to the discrepancy? If we should be worried what's the best way to find the cause of the difference? The domain canonical is set so can't really figure out if we've got a problem or not?
Technical SEO | | Nathan.Smith0 -
Different links to to the same page
Hi, Based on the user's actions we post activity into users Facebook timeline. And each activity has link back to our particular page on our website. For example if original page was: www.Domain.com from Facebook timeline it would be like this: www.Domain.com?Ffb_action_ids=101508953168 Do you think this will have a negative effect on our page rankings as we will eded up having a lot of different URL's to the same page? www.Domain.com?Ffb_action_ids=101508953168 www.Domain.com?Ffb_action_ids=456788765609 etc.. Thank you, Karen Bdoyan
Technical SEO | | showme0 -
What can be the cause of my inner pages ranking higher than my home page?
If you do a search for my own company name or products we sell the inner pages rank higher than the homepage and if you do a search for exact content from my home page my home page doesn't show in the results. My homepage shows when you do a site: search so not sure what is causing this.
Technical SEO | | deciph220 -
How do I know which page a link is from
I've got an interesting situation. I hope you can help. I have a list of links but I'm not sure which pages of my site they are from. How do I know which page a specific link is from? Thanks in advance.
Technical SEO | | VinceWicks0