Can a page be penalised by Google but not the entire site?
-
I have recently given some content to another site for a link. When I originally checked the site, it was indexed by Google and seemed ok. However, when I tried to check that the catergory page that my content was posted on was indexed, I received and error message from Google, however the homepage is still being indexed by Google. Is that the sign of a penalty or not?
-
All is fine then. Category pages are very often noindexed to reduce duplication issues, so really don't worry about this. It certainly doesn't sound like there are any penalties going on there.
That said, do a little social activity around your post as well and get it promoted.
-Andy
-
It does say noindex, follow
When I tried to check if it was indexed that way, it didn't return any results
-
Have a look in the header of the category page and see if it says "noindex, follow".
A simple way to check if a page is indexed, is to type site:www.siteurl.com/category or whatever the URL to the category page is.
The 404 might just mean the page wasn't available when it was crawled, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. The main thing is the page with your content on is indexed.
-Andy
-
I can access the category page on their website.
However, when I go to Google and type the cache:..... it returns a 404 error.
-
Yes, the common thing to do here is noindex the page but leave is set to Follow.
That said, you shouldn't get a 404 unless the page actually doesn't exist. Can you browse to the category on their website?
-
I'm just getting that 'Error 404 (not found)' page with the picture of the broken robot.
They may have just no-indexed the category pages, I didn't know that was possible.
-
What was the error message you got back from Google, Brian?
It is possible for Google to only index parts of a site that are considered worthwhile, but are you sure they haven't just no-indexed the category pages on the site? This is quite common.
-Andy
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
-
Backlinks from missing sites
While combing though spammy backlinks, I'm finding a lot of supposedly "active" links that lead to 404 errors, pages that contain no html, domains for sale, and sites that all have a uniform design which I can't tell if they're web host default pages, or pages using a spammy third-party link aggregator (or both).
Link Building | | rickmic
For example: http://easyreveal.us/ So, do I disavow missing sites? Lost sites? Is there a drawback to disavowing sites that have been removed? Any help would be appreciated.0 -
Content of the Product Page
Hi Everybody : how can you tell if the content on the product pages are accessible by google ? please have a look at my product page : http://www.fireplaceproducts.co.uk/stoves/aarrow-stoves/aarrow-ecoburn-defra-wood-burning-stove/ i used classes in product page to set the key features, construction ,... i notices other companies done these as text and they get better ranks do you think that's the reason ? also to test that i added the text exact same as the key features , construction ,... as additional information at the end of the product page , would you thin that would be considered as duplication ? Kind Regards Arta
Link Building | | fireproductsuk0 -
301 redirect of PR 6 domain to PR 1 site, Will it improve my site's seo?
I have a pagerank 1 website but i recently purchased one old pagerank 6 domain, if I 301 redirect this pr6 domain to my currrent pr1 site, will it will increase my site's pr and improve seo ?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS0 -
Inbound Links from Broken Pages
Hi all, We have a client who has a lot of inbound links from external pages that are broken/404. The 404 pages are EXTERNAL and linking to my client's pages, but their domain still has authority and their home page (and other pages) still load. My question is: what should we do about this? Do we detox those links, or are they still sending some juice given that they have domain authority, despite the fact that the pages linking to my client are broken? So in other words: - My client is: yyyy.com - They have a link from vvvv.com/services, which is a broken page - So what should we do about this? Thanks all! Gavin
Link Building | | strategemilabs0 -
Landing pages rank higher thank home page
Ive been tasked to work on several sites from a client that had some shady past seo work done for them. Weak content, tons of useless links all pointing to home page, etc. Ive gone through site and given a total re-write and worked on removing and dissavowing links. Majority of the sites home page ranked high on first page google. Now the sites are closer to 100 rank than first page, and the odd thing is that home page cant be found but pages like terms and conditions or disclaimer are ranking. These pages have hardly no content compared to home pages, and while they are still ranked 80 to 100 positions back they are ranking while the home page cant be found. We have tried changing anchor text to "click here", and "for more info" instead of keyword and nothing much changed yet. Competition still has pretty much keyword anchor text and worthless links and they still rank well. Am I wasting time with rewrites and link dissavows or should I continue and eventually get the sites home page to come back on the radar? We have added social media presence and a blog that we post to regularly and for 6 months of work have hardly seen a dent for improved rankings. Am I on the right page or spinning my wheels? Any advise is appreciated.
Link Building | | anthonytjm0 -
I have created 5 model specific blog sites which deliver links to my core site.
I post about 500 words of unique relevant content weekly to each model blog site. Each week, seo smartlinks delivers keyword anchor text links to my core site with a 3% keyword density. I have been doing this for 3 months and my core site traffic is stagnant or slightly down. Is this a good practice since its relevant content, or am I writing for nothing? Also, am I in danger of over optimized anchor text?
Link Building | | SEOQuest720 -
Slapped by Google update
Last couple of days we read things about Google algorithm and some things about companies or people doing "negative seo".. At first, nothing was wrong... if you play the game by the rules you won't get penalized you think... right? Today I checked rankings for some sites we're optimizing, and I fell of my chair! A site that was building better rankings week by week just dropped heavily and we have no clue if it's the algorithm update... Attached there are some screenshots, the first one showing the ranking for one of the most important keywords for that business, the others are link profiles & moztrust & rank for that root domain. As you can see, link profiles are much stronger that competitors, but that important keyword is dropping in rankings... We still have to do some on page optimizations (double title tags & some some canonical tags that have to be added, but that can't be the reason for this major drop?? Or am I missing something??? Any ideas? Are External Followed links growing to fast? (The blue line in screenshots is the site we're working on) rankings-may.jpg moztrust.jpg followed-links.jpg
Link Building | | nvs.nim0 -
Link to my site not showing up in Open Site Explorer
If a link to my site on another domain does not appear in the list of links gathered by the Open Site Explorer, does that mean that this backlink will not be crawled by search engine bots? Is there anything I should do to make sure that this link IS crawled and/or recognized by search engines coughGooglecough?
Link Building | | robgleslie0