Best way to implement noindex tags on archived blogs
-
Hi,
I have approximately 100 old blogs that I believe are of interest to web browsers that I'd potentially like to noindex due to the fact that they may be viewed poorly by Google, but I'd like to keep on our website.
A lot of the content in the blogs is similar to one another (as we blog about the same topics quite often), which is why I believe it may be in our interests to noindex older blogs that we have newer content for on more recent blogs.
Firstly does that sound like a good idea?
Secondly, can I use Google Tag Manager to implement noindex tags on specific blog pages? It's a hassle to get the webmaster to add in the code, and I've found no mention of whether you can implement such tags on Tag Manager on the usual SEO blogs. Or is there a better way to implement noindex tags en masse?
Thanks!
-
Hi there
I definitely admire your creativity on this one, but unfortunately the Google Tag Manager loads tags asynchronously. That means that the tags are added for users who execute javascript on page loads, but it means that the copy of the page that is crawled does not contain the tags. All of this means that the Google crawler won't see a noindex tag on the crawled version of its page if it's loaded via the Google Tag Manager.
I think your reasoning for noindexing the pages themselves is a very good one. You're removing pages with thin or potentially duplicate content from Google's indexing, which is healthy, while keeping the content on the page for the user, which again is a healthy thing to do. I can definitely see the reasoning.
Unfortunately, the only way I can see the tags being implemented is manually by the webmaster. If the site runs wordpress, you can change the robots meta data very quickly in the Yoast SEO plugin. If you get to the page in question and scroll to the Yoast plugin section, you'll be able to select the noindex tag from a drop-down menu, meaning it can take as little as 30 seconds.
Hope this helps and good luck with the implementation.
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
-
Hreflang tag implentation
Hi, We've had hreflang tags implemented on our site for a few weeks now, and while we are seeing some improvements for the regional subfolders I wanted to double check I had the tags implemented correctly (a couple of examples are below). However while the regional subfolder sites are now ranking instead of the US site for some keywords, some key search terms are still returning the US site. Could this be due to incorrect implementation for that specific page? Due to complications with using Magento we're implementing the tags in the site maps. Also magento appears to be inserting a rel canonical tag automatically for each page and self referencing e.g. On www.example.com/uk/security-cameras (one of the pages we're having issues with) the canonical tag is http://www.example.com/uk/security-cameras" />. Is this an issue? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks. <url><loc>http://www.example.com/uk/dvrs-kits</loc>
Technical SEO | | ahyde
<lastmod>2014-07-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority></url>
<url><loc>http://www.example.com/uk/dvrs-kits/1080p</loc>
<lastmod>2014-07-23</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority></url>0 -
What is the best way to stop a page being indexed?
What is the best way to stop a page being indexed? Is it to implement robots.txt at a site level with a Robots.txt file in the main directory or at a page level with the tag?
Technical SEO | | cbarron0 -
Noindex Success?
Has anyone had success implementing noindex/follow to pages from their site which has been hit by a Panda penalty? Our site has a lot of duplicate content for products descriptions that we had permission to use from our distributor (who is also online). We went ahead and noindex/follow those pages in the hopes that google will focus on the products that we carry that do have original descriptions (about 1/3 of our products). We didn't want to just remove those products since they are actually beneficial to our customers. Most of the duplication of content is in the form of ingredients lists.
Technical SEO | | dustyabe0 -
Duplicate Title Tags and Meta Desc even with the correct Canonical Tag
I show a large/growing number of duplicate title tags and duplicate meta descriptions in my webmaster tools. I look at both pages Link 1 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink.html Link 2 - http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers/where/color/petal-pink/limit/16.html Both pages have the following canonical url: <link rel="<a class="attribute-value">canonical</a>" href="http://www.thatsmytopper.com/wedding-cake-toppers/theme-cake-toppers/beach-theme-cake-toppers.html" > Why does this show up as a duplicate title tag and description to Google still?
Technical SEO | | bhalverson0 -
Paging Links Code - Best Way?
Currently we are using previous 1 2 3 next for our link to other inventory pages, with some variation of this javascript code javascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$phMain$dlPagesTop$ctl01$lnkPageTop','') . Can search engines even index the other pages with this javascript? Is there a better way to do this?
Technical SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Where a Blog should be located?
Hello Guys, My question is, in a Company where do a Blog should be located? In a subdomain? a subfolder? a in a independent domain? Tks in advance! Regards,
Technical SEO | | PedroM0 -
Best way to handle different views of the same page?
Say I have a page: mydomain.com/page But I also have different views: /?sort=alpha /print-version /?session_ID=2892 etc. All same content, more or less. Should the subsequent pages have ROBOTS meta tag with noindex? Should I use canonical? Both? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ChatterBlock0 -
Best XML Sitemap generator
Do you guys have any suggestions on a good XML Sitemaps generator? hopefully free, but if it's good i'd consider paying I am using a MAC so would prefer a online or mac version
Technical SEO | | kevin48030