Removing old URLs from Google
-
We rebuilt a site about a year ago on a new platform however Google is still indexing URL's from the old site that we have no control over. We had hoped that time would have 'cleaned' these out but they are still being flagged in HTML improvements in GWT. Is there anything we can do to effect these 'external' dropping out of the indexing given that they are still being picked up after a year.
-
I had kind of a 'derp moment'. If you control the same domain, take a look at your historic traffic (if possible) and definitely do a link audit on the error pages. You can 301 the old pages to their newer, relevant, counterparts.
I would take that tact before removal.
-
Thanks for the helpful responses and yes Ben we are based in old Jersey...
-
Do you mean that it's the same domain and the old URLs are still floating around? If so, you can try removing them via GWT. Just be very careful which URLs you list for removal. Make a list and check it three times.
If these are 404s pointing to your site from external domains, the best you can do is contact the administrator at the site and request they point to a relevant page with a 200 response code.
-
Are you able to access and edit your .HTACCESS file? It should be in the root directory of your domain. If so you should be able to create 301 redirects pointing one URL permanently to another. If not things may be more difficult.
P.S. Are you guys really based in Jersey? It's rather rare to meet a fellow Channel Islander here!
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 rankings
I have encountered a serious problem with google rankings and the sequence of events goes like this for a high volume phrase. I make changes to the page which gets a score of 98 in Moz and equally good scores in other tools. I resubmit the page to Google for searching via crawl in google webmasters. After about 1/2 to 1 day, the page will be ranked between 30 and 50. Within another 1/2 to 1 day, the ranking goes completely away. This page has much higher scores than pages that are ranked. Other phrases continue to rank OK.
On-Page Optimization | | tiedyedshop0 -
Duplicate URL's in Sitemap? Is that a problem?
I submitted a sitemap to on Search Console - but noticed that there are duplicate URLs, is that a problem for Google?
On-Page Optimization | | Luciana_BAH0 -
Short URL's vs Optimised URL's
Howdy Mozzers! What are your thoughts on short URL's vs Optimised URL's. For example if a website currently sells wood furniture and wants to target the keyword "Wood Furniture For Sale", which URL would be preferable: Short URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture Optimised URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture-for-sale The website also uses facet navigation and selected attributes are added in a fixed order sequence after the category. For example if Cane is selected as wood type: Short URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture/Cane Optimised URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture-for-sale/Cane Which one do you prefer (between the short URL and optimised URL) and why? Cheers! MozAddict
On-Page Optimization | | MozAddict0 -
Sorry, but that URL is inaccessible
Our site is all on the https protocol so every time I use the on-page grader it tells me the link is unavailable. What can we do? When I use the http protocol (which is 301 redirected to the https) it still gives me the same message.
On-Page Optimization | | whiskeyfl1 -
URL best practices
Hi, I have a problem here, I used http://www.vietnamvisacorp.com/faqs.html instead of http://www.vietnamvisacorp.com/faqs. Hence, http://www.vietnamvisacorp.com/faqs will be caused 404 page. My question is should I change from faqs.html to faqs (no .html)? Thanks in advance any advice?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Keyword in URL: Ranking Factor?
I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist). I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url? The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example: My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor). Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure? (By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
URL STRUCTURE & RE-WRITING
1.) I need a suggestion from you, please help. How should be the Directory/URL structure if I am offering servicves in many cities of UK/US. /<service>/
On-Page Optimization | | younus
/<service>/<state>/
/<service>/<state>/<city>/ OR /<service>/
/<state>/<service>/
/<state>/<city>/<service>/ Thanks for your time.</service></city></state></service></state></service></city></state></service></state></service></service> What exactly mean by 'URL enforce writer' to rewrite the URL.0 -
Changing page titles and google penalties?
I just recently learned that changing your page title earns you a google penalty. Unfortunately i learned this after playing around with my page titles a bit to get the most optimal page titles. Does anybody know how long this google penalty lasts? is it forever? or just temporary?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0