Webmaster Tools - Clarification of what the top directory is in a calender url
-
Hi all,
I had an issue where it turned out a calender was used on my site historically (a couple of years ago) but the pages were still present, crawled and indexed by google to this day.
I want to remove them now from the index as it really clouds my analysis and as I have been trying to clean things up e.g. by turning modules off, webmaster tools is throwing up more and more errors due to these pages.
Below is an example of the url of one of the pages:
The closest question I have found on the topic in Seomoz is:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-issue-6
I want to remove all these pages from the index by targeting their top level folder. From the historic question above would I be right in saying that it is:
http://www.example.co.uk/index.php?mact=Calendar
I want to be certain before I do a directory level removal request in case it actually targets index.php instead and deindexes my whole site (or homepage at the very least).
Thanks
-
Unfortunately, "index.php?mact=Calendar" is not a folder, it's a page+parameter. If you tried to block that as a folder in GWT, it would mostly just not work. If it went really wrong, you'd block anything driven from index.php (including your home-page).
A couple of options:
(1) Programmatically META NOINDEX anything that calls the calendar parameters. This would have to be done selectively in the index.php header with code, so that ONLY the calendar pages were affected.
(2) Block "mact=" or "year=" with parameter handling in GWT. under "Configuration" > "URL Parameters". ONLY do this if these parameters drive the calendar and no other pages. You can basically tell Google to ignore pages with "year=" in them.
You can also block parameters in Robots.txt, but honestly, once the pages have been indexed, it doesn't work very well.
-
Thanks Thomas, I have uploaded a new site map to GMWT and hopefully that will cause Google to ignore those disappeared pages.
Best,
Mitty
-
I would not use googles disavow or remove links tool Lightly at all.
in my opinion it would be easier to fix the problems you're talking about on the site internally and to ask Google to ignore or disavow. They can basically penalize you because have essentially admitted you've done something wrong just by using the tips about tool. I don't mean to scare you and I don't think you've done anything wrong and if I were you I would let Google know that what you have done is simply try to picture website up to the bust your abilities for the end-user's experienced not for hiding any malicious actions in the past.
Sorry to be so alerted by this but you really do want to stay on top of what you tell Google and what they perceive you're telling them.
I hope this has been of help. The reason I gave the thing for treehouse which is available at an pro perks at the bottom of the page is they teach everything you need to fix the problems you have without using Google.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Thanks for the advice and the links Thomas.
I've already gotten rid of the pages from my site and they are not malware inducing so not to worry.
My question is only concerned with webmaster tools. I can manually enter each link into the removal tool but that will take days.
I am aware that there is a option in GWMT to remove directories as well as individual urls i.e. if I had a site that had the following pages: www.example.com/plants/tulips & www.example.com/plants/roses
I could either enter both urls into the removal tool or simply put www.example.com/plants/ and designate it a directory both pages would be removed.
My question is to confirm if I have the following pages which have virtually identical pathways but for the dates 2084 and 3000:
Could I just simply use http://www.example.co.uk/index.php?mact=Calendar as a directory, saving me having to write out the full pathways for both the pages.
-
I just remembered where you can learn how to do this. And it's free.
Pro perks at the bottom of the page will give you one month of free information from treehouse it is a mecca of videos and information on code to Seo to hosting to everything you ever wanted to know honestly take it advantage of this tool.
-
Well I believe the URLs you're talking about if the calendar took up the entire page or even part of it. It could harm other content on the page if there is any ask is there any?
Run your website through http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/
It will tell you immediately if you have any malware running on your website. If you do I strongly suggest purchasing sucuri and cleaning up. However hopefully that's not the case and you simply need some tweaking Denchere website. I unfortunately am not gifted with the knowledge of code. But I know there is a option out there that is extremely inexpensive and very high-quality called tweak a five I will try to find the URL right now that for less than $100 I
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/category/code/
One of the better ones can be found by asking the guys at webdevStudios.com they are geniuses and it will lead you in the right direction. I don't want give you any advice that's wrong advice. Sincerely, Tom
-
Thanks Thomas.
It was a calender module with my CMS CMS Made Simple, it seemed to have generated thousands of pages which all linked to each page of my site so webmaster tools had listed my less than 100 page site (or so I thought) as having over 40,000 internal links pointing to each page.
I have deactivated it and added a site map to webmaster tools (GWMT) and that seems to have generated thousands of errors in the GWMT.
There is a list of the top 1,000 urls which are pretty much the calender pages and they are now returning 404 errors (as I have switched off the module so they are effectively deleted) but I want to have them deindexed so as to see if there is anything else hidden in the background.
I'm not completely sure with what you've sent me below. Are you concurring that if I add the below URL to the removal tool and select directory removal it will just target all those 404'd pages?
-
-
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_ref_filesystem.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_ref_filter.asp
&
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_ref_calendar.asp
Tell me if you need any help after this removing that calendar and I will give it a whirl. Sincerely, Tom
-
You are wise to be conscious. Be sure is your site hundred percent PHP? To you know what the calendar is made from meaning is it a third-party software? Or is it something you had Bill or had someone built for you a while back?
Try running your site through builtwith.com and it will give you the components of your website if the calendar shows up you can then Google a way to remove it.
If you don't feel comfortable sharing your URL here send it to me in a private message I'd be happy to have a look at it and give you my best opinion. I am not going to tell you that I am king of coding but I can pick up on these types of things sometimes and I'd be happy to lend another set of eyes.
Sincerely,
Thomas
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
-
URL Redirect
Hi All, So we have employees who can own their own domains for business, however, one employee has a domain that links back to our main site, but when it does, the URL and Page title of our main site, still say his own domain. IE: www.johndoe.com links to www.mysite.com except the url and itle still say www.johndoe.com What are the implications of this? Thank you
Technical SEO | | PeteEllard0 -
If a URL canonically points to another link, is that URL indexed?
Hi, I have two URL both talking about keyword phrase 'counting aggregated cells' The first URL has canonical link pointing to the second URL, but if one searches for 'counting aggregated cells' both URLs are shown in the results. The first URL is the pdf, and i need only second URL (the landing page) to be shown in the search results. The canonical links should tell Google which URL to index, i don't understand why both URLs are present in search results? Is 'noindex' for the first URL only solution? I am using Yoast SEO for my website. Thank you for the answers.
Technical SEO | | Chemometec0 -
How to Remove a website from your Bing Webmaster Tools account
I have a site in Bing Webmaster Tools that I no longer work on. I can't seem to find where to delete this website from my webmaster tools account. Anyone know how (there doesn't seem to be anything obvious under Bing Help or on a Google Search).
Technical SEO | | TopFloor0 -
Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL?
This is for an ecommerce site, and the company I'm working with has started selling a new line of products they want to promote.Should I make a new URL just so it can include a target keyword, then 301 redirect the old URL? One of my concerns is losing a little bit of link value from redirecting. Thank you for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
Webmaster internal links issue
Hi All, In webmaster > Internal links https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/internal-links?hl=en&siteUrl= I get counts as in the image http://imgur.com/9bO5H0f is this logical and ok or should i work on finding why so many links and reduce them? Thanks Martin
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Fix or Block Webmaster Tools URL Errors Not Found Linked from a certain domain?
RE: Webmaster Tool "Not Found" URL Errors are strange links from webstatsdomain.com Should I continue to fix 404 errors for strange links from a website called webstatsdomain.com or is there a way to ask Google Webmaster Tools to ignore them? Most of Webmaster Tools "URL Not Found errors" I find for our website are from this domain. They refer to pages that never existed. For example, one was to www.mydomain.com/virtual. Thanks for your help.
Technical SEO | | zharriet0 -
301 redirects and Dynamic URLs
I just ran my first diagnostic and one of my primary immediate problems are duplicate titles and duplicate content. My guess it that because the root URL http://sitename.com (which has not yet been redirected to www...) has generated an entire tree of content which is identical to the tree rooted at http://www.sitename.com. QUESTION: Do I need to do a redirect simply for the root url (sitename.com -> www.sitename.com) or do I now need to develop specific 301 redirects for each of the sub-nodes/pages? ie sitename.com/?q=about-us -> www.sitename.com/?q=about-us sitename.com/?q=our-team -> www.sitename.com/?q=our-team etc.
Technical SEO | | Barrycliff680 -
Directory Categories
Is it important to select the right category for directory listings from an SEO point of view? I have located 2 appropriate categories in Business.com for my website: Category 1 = PR 5, Page Authority 53 Category 2 = PR 4, Page Authority 44 I presume number of links on the page is also a factor.
Technical SEO | | martyc0