How can I get unimportant pages out of Google?
-
Hi Guys,
I have a (newbie) question, untill recently I didn't had my robot.txt written properly so Google indexed around 1900 pages of my site, but only 380 pages are real pages, the rest are all /tag/ or /comment/ pages from my blog. I now have setup the sitemap and the robot.txt properly but how can I get the other pages out of Google? Is there a trick or will it just take a little time for Google to take out the pages?
Thanks!
Ramon
-
If you want to remove an entire directory, you can exclude that directory in robots.txt, then go to Google Webmaster Tools and request a URL removal. You'll have an option to remove an entire directory there.
-
No, sorry. What I said is, if you mark the folder as disalow in robots.txt, it will not remove the pages are already indexed.
But the meta tag, when the spiders go again on the page and see that the pages are with the noindex tag will remove it.
Since you can not already include the directory on the robots.txt. Before removing the SE pages.
First you put the noindex tag on all pages you want to remove. After they are removed, it takes a week for a month. After you add the folders in robots.txt to your site who do not want to index.
After that, you dont need to worry about the tags.
I say this because when you add in the robots.txt first, the SE does not read the page anymore, so they would not read the meta noindex tag. Therefore you must first remove the pages with noindex tag and then add in robot.txt
Hope this has helped.
João Vargas
-
No, sorry. What I said is, if you mark the folder as disalow in robots.txt, it will not remove the pages are already indexed.
But the meta tag, when the spiders go again on the page and see that the pages are with the noindex tag will remove it.
Since you can not already include the directory on the robots.txt. Before removing the SE pages.
First you put the noindex tag on all pages you want to remove. After they are removed, it takes a week for a month. After you add the folders in robots.txt to your site who do not want to index.
After that, you dont need to worry about the tags.
I say this because when you add in the robots.txt first, the SE does not read the page anymore, so they would not read the meta noindex tag. Therefore you must first remove the pages with noindex tag and then add in robot.txt
Hope this has helped.
João Vargas
-
Thanks Vargas, If I choose for noindex, I should remove it from the robot.txt right?
I understood that if you have a noindex tag on the page and as well a dissallow in the robot.txt the SE will index it, is that true?
-
For you remove the pages you want, need to put a tag:
<meta< span="">name="robots" content="noindex">If you want internal links and external relevance to pass on these pages, you put:
<meta< span="">name="robots" content="noindex, follow">If you do the lock on robot.txt: only need to include the tag in the current urls, new search engines will index no.
In my opinion, I do not like using the google url remover. Because if someday you want to index these folders, will not, at least it has happened to me.
The noindex tag works very well to remove objectionable content, within 1 month or so now will be removed.</meta<></meta<>
-
Yes. It's only a secondary level aid, and not guaranteed, yet it could help speed up the process of devaluing those pages in Google's internal system. If the system sees those, and cross-references to the robots.txt file it could help.
-
Thanks guys for your answers....
Alan, do you mean that I place the tag below at all the pages that I want out of Google? -
I agree with Alan's reply. Try canonical 1st. If you don't see any change, remove the URLs in GWT.
-
There's no bulk page request form so you'd need to submit every URL one at a time, and even then it's not a guaranteed way. You could consider gettting a canonical tag on those specific pages that provides a different URL from your blog, such as an appropriate category page, or the blog home page. That could help speed things up, but canonical tags themselves are only "hints" to Google.
Ultimately it's a time and patience thing.
-
It will take time, but you can help it along by using the url removal tool in Google Webmaster Tools. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
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
-
Unsolved Why My site pages getting video index viewport issue?
Hello, I have been publishing a good number of blogs on my site Flooring Flow. Though, there's been an error of the video viewport on some of my articles. I have tried fixing it but the error is still showing in Google Search Console. Can anyone help me fix it out?
Technical SEO | | mitty270 -
Pages are Indexed but not Cached by Google. Why?
Hello, We have magento 2 extensions website mageants.com since 1 years google every 15 days cached my all pages but suddenly last 15 days my websites pages not cached by google showing me 404 error so go search console check error but din't find any error so I have cached manually fetch and render but still most of pages have same 404 error example page : - https://www.mageants.com/free-gift-for-magento-2.html error :- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&rlz=1C1CHBD_enIN803IN804&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.mageants.com%2Ffree-gift-for-magento-2.html&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1569j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 so have any one solutions for this issues
Technical SEO | | vikrantrathore0 -
Hybrid page showing in Google search results
Hello Mozzers We have two pages showing on page 1 of Google for the search term 'inset day sessions' This url is the correct page which we want site visitors to see. http://www.laughology.co.uk/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/inset-days The other page page seems to be a strange hybrid of how the page used to look and the new content we have included. It's a mess and we don't want visitors clicking on this link. There is no menu link to this page on the site, but it is showing as a link In SH404sef http://www.laughology.co.uk/schools/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/ What is the best way to deal with this? Thanks Ian nKOHYbn
Technical SEO | | Substance-create0 -
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 -
Can I turn off Google site links?
I thought at one time I had turned off the option to have Google sitelinks. I did this so that each of our pages that had a strong presence would occupy a unique slot on the first and second page of Google. This was important to us as we were battling some reputation management issues and trying to push out negative listings from the front page. Recently I noticed sitelinks were back up and when going into Google Webmaster Tools, I could figure out how to opt out of them. Any suggestions?
Technical SEO | | BRConsulting0 -
Google places page where is my additional information
Hi When creating Google places you can add additional information but where does this information go? its not showing up on the page when you place page? Whats the best practice when creating pages in relation to optimising them ? thanks
Technical SEO | | Bristolweb0 -
Getting Listed on Google Satellite Maps
How does a website get listed in the satellite version of Google Maps? I have clients that are ranking number 1 in the pack 7 with Google Places and local SEO but they don't show up on the big map. Click on this link to see what I mean http://connect7.biz/google-maps.jpg I have circled the listings in red. How are these businesses getting listed in the satellite version of Google Maps? Thanks
Technical SEO | | fun52dig
Gary0 -
Is there a way I can track Arabic keywords on the Arabic version of Google Qatar using SEOMOZ Rank checker?
I have a Qatari website in Arabic and I would like to know if it is possible to track the Arabic keywords using google.com.qa in Arabic using SEOMoz rank checker. When selecting the three search engines, I have no choice over the language. Only the country can be modified. Any solution?
Technical SEO | | mrlee1