Pages to be indexed in Google
-
Hi,
We have 70K posts in our site but Google has scanned 500K pages and these extra pages are category pages or User profile pages.
Each category has a page and each user has a page. When we have 90K users so Google has indexed 90K pages of users alone.
My question is. Should we leave it as they are or should we block them from being indexed? As we get unwanted landings to the pages and huge bounce rate.
If we need to remove what needs to be done? Robots block or Noindex/Nofollow
Regards
-
Thank you Gagan!
-
Its a much better and clear explanation... +1 to it. Cheers !!
-
One key point on using robots.txt vs the meta tag noindex. It is not that the noindex meta tag is "superior" they just work differently.
If you use robots.txt - it will stop the spider from visiting that page, but it will not remove the page from the index. Also, if you have a page in robots.txt and on that page have a 301 redirect, or a canonical or a meta noindex Google will not see the page (due to the robots.txt directive) and then not be able to act on the 301 or canonical or the meta noindex.
A meta noindex, because the spider crawls the page, will not only tell Google not to visit the page anymore, but also tells Google to remove the page from the index. This is key if you want the pages removed from the Google index.
The rule of thumb I use is that
-
If you have a page that is not in the Google index and you want to keep it out of the index put that file in robots.txt.
-
If you have a page that is in the Google index and you want it removed, then use the noindex meta tag, do not put it into the robots.txt for reasons mentioned above. Over time, once the pages are removed (and this may take a while depending on how often the page is cralwed) then you can put into robots.txt for good measure.
-
-
In order to exclude individual pages from search engine indices, **the noindex meta tag **is actually superior to robots.txt.
-
Noindex is good or robots deny
Whats the difference or can do both?
-
If they have pretty low content or do not add any value and is not searched by users too
Will be better to add noindex so as to have search engines crawl your site in a better way.
-
if those are generating a high bounce rate I would block them for search engines. The easiest way is probably by a robots.txt
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 Not Indexing Submitted Images
Hi Guys! My question isn't too dissimilar to one asked a couple of years ago, regarding Google and image indexing, but having put my web address into a Google image search, I get a return of 15 images, so something isn't right. 5 months ago I submitted our 'new' site to Google webmaster. We have just moved it onto a Shopify platform. They (Shopify) are good at providing places to add titles and Alt tags and likewise we fill them in (so that box ticked!) However I have noticed over the last couple of months that despite 161 images being submitted, only 51 have been indexed. Furthermore and as I said earlier, when you put our site, site:http://www.hartnackandco.com into Google images, it only returns a total of 15 images. Any suggestions and help would be wonderful! Cheers Nick
Technical SEO | | nick_HandCo0 -
Does a no-indexed parent page impact its child pages?
If I have a page* in WordPress that is set as private and is no-indexed with Yoast, will that negatively affect the visibility of other pages that are set as children of that first page? *The context is that I want to organize some of the pages on a business's WordPress site into silos/directories. For example, if the business was a home remodeling company, it'd be convenient to keep all the pages about bathrooms, kitchens, additions, basements, etc. bundled together under a "services" parent page (/services/kitchens/, /services/bathrooms/, etc.). The thing is that the child pages will all be directly accessible from the menus, so there doesn't need to be anything on the parent /services/ page itself. Another such parent page/directory/category might be used to keep different photo gallery pages together (/galleries/kitchen-photos/, /galleries/bathroom-photos/, etc.). So again, would it be safe for pages like /services/kitchens/ and /galleries/addition-photos/ if the /services/ and /galleries/ pages (but not /galleries/* or anything like that) are no-indexed? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BrianAlpert781 -
Is site: a reliable method for getting full list of indexed pages?
The site:domain.com search seems to show less pages than it used to (Google and Bing). It doesn't relate to a specific site but all sites. For example, I will get "page 1 of about 3,000 results" but by the time I've paged through the results it will end and change to "page 24 of 201 results". In that example If I look in GSC it shows 1,932 indexed. Should I now accept the "pages" listed in site: is an unreliable metric?
Technical SEO | | bjalc20112 -
Does Google index internal anchors as separate pages?
Hi, Back in September, I added a function that sets an anchor on each subheading (h[2-6]) and creates a Table of content that links to each of those anchors. These anchors did show up in the SERPs as JumpTo Links. Fine. Back then I also changed the canonicals to a slightly different structur and meanwhile there was some massive increase in the number of indexed pages - WAY over the top - which has since been fixed by removing (410) a complete section of the site. However ... there are still ~34.000 pages indexed to what really are more like 4.000 plus (all properly canonicalised). Naturally I am wondering, what google thinks it is indexing. The number is just way of and quite inexplainable. So I was wondering: Does Google save JumpTo links as unique pages? Also, does anybody know any method of actually getting all the pages in the google index? (Not actually existing sites via Screaming Frog etc, but actual pages in the index - all methods I found sadly do not work.) Finally: Does somebody have any other explanation for the incongruency in indexed vs. actual pages? Thanks for your replies! Nico
Technical SEO | | netzkern_AG0 -
What's going on with google index - javascript and google bot
Hi all, Weird issue with one of my websites. The website URL: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/ Let's take 2 diffrenet article pages from this website: 1st: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/71232/ As you can see the page is indexed correctly on google: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dfbzhHkl5K4J:www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/71232/10-minute-core-and-cardio&hl=en&strip=1 (that the "text only" version, indexed on May 19th) 2nd: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/69811 As you can see the page isn't indexed correctly on google: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KeU6-oViFkgJ:www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/69811&hl=en&strip=1 (that the "text only" version, indexed on May 21th) They both have the same code, and about the dates, there are pages that indexed before the 19th and they also problematic. Google can't read the content, he can read it when he wants to. Can you think what is the problem with that? I know that google can read JS and crawl our pages correctly, but it happens only with few pages and not all of them (as you can see above).
Technical SEO | | cobano0 -
Redesigned and Migrated Website - Lost Almost All Organic Traffic - Mobile Pages Indexing over Normal Pages
We recently redesigned and migrated our site from www.jmacsupply.com to https://www.jmac.com It has been over 2 weeks since implementing 301 redirects, and we have lost over 90% of our organic traffic. Google seems to be indexing the mobile versions of our pages over our website pages. We hired a designer to redesign the site, and we are confident the code is doing something that is harmful for ranking our website. F or Example: If you google "KEEDEX-K-DS-FLX38" You should see our mobile page ranking: http://www.jmac.com/mobile/Product.aspx?ProductCode=KEEDEX-K-DS-FLX38 but the page that we want ranked (and we think should be, is https://www.jmac.com/Keedex_K_DS_FLX38_p/keedex-k-ds-flx38.htm) That second page isn't even indexed. (When you search for: "site:jmac.com Keedex K-DS-FLX38") We have implemented rel canonical, and rel alternate both ways. What are we doing wrong??? Thank you in advance for any help - it is much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | jmaccom0 -
Google's Omitted Results - Attempt to De-Index
We're trying to get webpages from our QA site out of Google's index. We've inserted the NOINDEX tags. Google now shows only 3 results (down from 196,000), however, they offer a link to "show omitted results" at the bottom of the page. (A) Did we do something wrong? or (B) were we successful with our NOINDEX but Google will offer to show omitted results anyway? Please advise! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BVREID0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page
We are trying to figure out why google is ranking the wrong page for the key word motorcycle tires. We have a few ideas but are not sure yet. If you do a search for Motorcycle Tires you will see site on page 2 or top of 3; however, the page will be going to our dirt bike tires page (http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/44/86/176/742/Dirt-Bike-Tires-All) not our Motorcycle page (http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/49/-/181/750/Motorcycle-Tires-All) any thoughts? We think we know why but want others opinions too.
Technical SEO | | DoRM0