When should we use Remove URLs feature on Google Webmasters Tool?
-
Hi there,
I run an ecommerce website on Magento. We are no longer using a category. It actually does not appear on the menu:
If this is the case, do you recommend to remove it through the Removal URL feature on GWT?
I don't want this to affect the juice of other links of the site such as:
Thanks very much.
Regards
-
I would just 301 that URL to similar products that are as close as possible and or the home page of the site as this would be a better user experience than returning a 404. Although If some URLs on your site 404, this fact alone does not hurt you or count against you in Google’s search results.
You could 410 them as 410's tend to drop out of the index faster. If the page has gotten a lot of traffic, then I might want to NOINDEX it. All in all there isn't a real one size fits all thing here, especially for eCommerce.
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
-
Google Indexing Pages with Made Up URL
Hi all, Google is indexing a URL on my site that doesn't exist, and never existed in the past. The URL is completely made up. Anyone know why this is happening and more importantly how to get rid of it. Thanks 🙂
Technical SEO | | brian-madden0 -
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean?
My SEO friend says my website is not being indexed by Google considering the keywords he has placed in the page and URL what does that mean? We have added some text in the pages with keywords thats related the page
Technical SEO | | AlexisWithers0 -
Removing Redirected URLs from XML Sitemap
If I'm updating a URL and 301 redirecting the old URL to the new URL, Google recommends I remove the old URL from our XML sitemap and add the new URL. That makes sense. However, can anyone speak to how Google transfers the ranking value (link value) from the old URL to the new URL? My suspicion is this happens outside the sitemap. If Google already has the old URL indexed, the next time it crawls that URL, Googlebot discovers the 301 redirect and that starts the process of URL value transfer. I guess my question revolves around whether removing the old URL (or the timing of the removal) from the sitemap can impact Googlebot's transfer of the old URL value to the new URL.
Technical SEO | | RyanOD0 -
Whats influencing Googles Predictive text feature?
Good morning from 7 degrees C mostly cloudy wetherby UK 😉 Here is todays musing... When you enter a term in Google it predicts what your trying to enter but I wonder what is influencing the order of the phrases. For example when you enter cms website the terms it autofills are not alpahabetical eg: cms website
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
cms website templates
cms website design below link illustrates this:
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/google-auto-fillcopy.jpg So my question is please: "Is this a volume thing in that Geoogle works out whats in demand via ppc ads and then ranks them acccordingly"? Any insights welcome 🙂0 -
Is the RSS created using google reader automatic?
I created an RSS feed to information on my blog using the notes capability of google reader and feedburner. when I update my blog does this feed recognize the change or do I need to do a manual update of google reader?
Technical SEO | | casper4340 -
Strange Top URLs for Keywords in Google Webmaster Tools
When we click on one of our keywords under the keywords section of Google Webmaster Tools it shows our top URLs for that keyword. The problem is that it is giving us some very strange URLs that we have searched high and low to try to find but we don't know where they came from. Here is a screenshot: http://bit.ly/pl6mB3 Do you know where this type of URL string could have originated and how to fix it?
Technical SEO | | Hakkasan0 -
How to handle URL's from removed products?
Hi All, I have a question about a fashion related webshop. Every month about 100 articles are removed and about the some amouth is added to the site. Most of the products are indexed on brandname and type (e.g. MyBrand t-shirt blue) My question is what to do with the URL / page after the product is removed. I'm thinking about a couple of solutions: 301 the page to the brand categorie page build a script which shows related articles on the old URL (and try to keep it indexed) 404 page optimized for search term with links to brand category any other suggestons? Thanks in advance, Sam
Technical SEO | | U-Digital0 -
Why is this url showing as "not crawled" on opensiteexplorer, but still showing up in Google's index?
The below url is showing up as "not crawled" on opensitexplorer.com, but when you google the title tag "Joel Roberts, Our Family Doctors - Doctor in Clearwater, FL" it is showing up in the Google index. Can you explain why this is happening? Thank you http://doctor.webmd.com/physician_finder/profile.aspx?sponsor=core&pid=14ef09dd-e216-4369-99d3-460aa3c4f1ce
Technical SEO | | nicole.healthline0