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.
Why are pages still showing in SERPs, despite being NOINDEXed for months?
-
We have thousands of pages we're trying to have de-indexed in Google for months now. They've all got . But they simply will not go away in the SERPs.
Here is just one example....
http://bitly.com/VutCFiIf you search this URL in Google, you will see that it is indexed, yet it's had for many months. This is just one example for thousands of pages, that will not get de-indexed. Am I missing something here? Does it have to do with using content="none" instead of content="noindex, follow"?
Any help is very much appreciated.
-
Thanks for your reply,
Let me know if you are able to deindex those pages. I will wait. Also please share what you have implemented to deindex those pages.
-
A page can have a link to it, and still not be indexed, so I disagree with you on that.
But thanks for using the domain name. That will teach me to use a URL shortener...
-
Hm, that is interesting. So you're saying that it will get crawled, and thus will eventually become deindexed (as noindex is part of the content="none" directive), but since it's a dead end page, it just takes an extra long time for that particular page to get crawled?
-
Just to add to the other answers, you can also remove the URLs (or entire directory if necessary) via the URL removal tool in Webmaster Tools, although Google prefers you to use it for emergencies of sorts (I've had no problems with it).
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164734
-
No, nofollow will only tell the bot that the page is a dead end - that the bot should not follow any links on page. And that means any inks from those pages won't be visited by the bot - that is slowing the crawling process overall for those pages.
If you block a page in robots.txt and the page is already in the index - that will remain in the index as the noindex or content=none won't be seen by the bot so it won't be removed from the index - it will just won't be visited anymore.
-
Ok, so, nofollow is stopping the page from being read at all? I thought that nofollow just means the links on the page will not be followed. Is meta nofollow essentially the same as blocking a page in robots.txt?
-
Hi Howard,
The page is in Google index because you are still linking to that page from your website. Here is the page from where that page links:
http://www.2mcctv.com/product_print-productinfoVeiluxVS70CDNRDhtml.html
As you are linking that page Google indexing the page. Google come to know about "noindex" tag before that he has already indexed it. Sorry for bad English.
Lindsay has written awesome post about it here:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/robot-access-indexation-restriction-techniques-avoiding-conflicts
After reading above blog post, my all doubts about noindex, follow, robots.txt get clear.
Thanks Lindsay
-
We always use the noindex code in our robot.txt file.
-
Hi,
In order to deindex you should use noindex as content=none also means nofollow. You do need to follow now in order to reach all other pages and see the no index tag and remove those from the index.
When you have all of them out of the index you can set the none back on.
This is the main reason "none" as attribute is not very wide in usage as "shooting yourself in the foot" with it it's easy.
On the otehr hand you need to see if google bot is actually reaching those pages:
-
see if you don't have any robots.txt restrictions first
-
see when google's bot last have a hit on any of the pages - that will give you a good idea and you can do a prediction.
If those pages are in the sup index you can wait for some time for Google bit to revisit.
One last note: build xml sitemaps with all of those pages and submit those via WMT - that will help at 100% to get those in front of the firing squad and also to be able to monitor those better.
Hope it helps.
-
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
-
.xml sitemap showing in SERP
Our sitemap is showing in Google's SERP. While it's only for very specific queries that don't seem to have much value (it's a healthcare website and when a doctor who isn't with us is search with the brand name so 'John Smith Brand,' it shows if there's a first or last name that matches the query), is there a way to not make the sitemap indexed so it's not showing in the SERP. I've seen the "x-robots-tag: noindex" as a possible option, but before taking any action wanted to see if this was still true and if it would work.
Technical SEO | | Kyleroe950 -
Google Showing wrong image in the SERPS
Hi Guys, In organic SERPS Google pulling incorrect product image, instead of product image its showing image from relevant products, Checked the structured data, og:image everything is set to the product image, not sure why google showing images from relevant product sidebar, any help, please?
Technical SEO | | SpartMoz0 -
Nofollow/Noindex Category Listing Pages with Filters
Our e-commerce site currently has thousands of duplicate pages indexed because category listing pages with all the different filters selected are indexed. So, for example, you would see indexed: example.com/boots example.com/boots/black example.com/boots/black-size-small etc. There is a logic in place that when more than one filter is selected all the links on the page are nofollowed, but Googlebot is still getting to them, and the variations are being indexed. At this point I'd like to add 'noindex' or canonical tags to the filtered versions of the category pages, but many of these filtered pages are driving traffic. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fayfr0 -
Why is Google Webmaster Tools showing 404 Page Not Found Errors for web pages that don't have anything to do with my site?
I am currently working on a small site with approx 50 web pages. In the crawl error section in WMT Google has highlighted over 10,000 page not found errors for pages that have nothing to do with my site. Anyone come across this before?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Is the Authority of Individual Pages Diluted When You Add New Pages?
I was wondering if the authority of individual pages is diluted when you add new pages (in Google's view). Suppose your site had 100 pages and you added 100 new pages (without getting any new links). Would the average authority of the original pages significantly decrease and result in a drop in search traffic to the original pages? Do you worry that adding more pages will hurt pages that were previously published?
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe0 -
Page titles in browser not matching WP page title
I have an issue with a few page titles not matching the title I have In WordPress. I have 2 pages, blog & creative gallery, that show the homepage title, which is causing duplicate title errors. This has been going on for 5 weeks, so its not an a crawl issue. Any ideas what could cause this? To clarify, I have the page title set in WP, and I checked "Disable PSP title format on this page/post:"...but this page is still showing the homepage title. Is there an additional title setting for a page in WP?
Technical SEO | | Branden_S0 -
How to determine which pages are not indexed
Is there a way to determine which pages of a website are not being indexed by the search engines? I know Google Webmasters has a sitemap area where it tells you how many urls have been submitted and how many are indexed out of those submitted. However, it doesn't necessarily show which urls aren't being indexed.
Technical SEO | | priceseo1 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1