Removed URLs
-
Hi all,
We have recently removed 200+ articles from our blog. However, those links are still being shown on Google weeks after their removal. In there a way to speed up the process? What effect will this have on our SEO ranking?
-
Ok, if I would be at your place, I will choose one of these solutions.
- 301 the URL to appropriate live URLs so that when traffic lands, it go to relevant page or a custom 404 page that tell user the page is not available (and give links to other parts of the website). This is a good idea to retain visitor to the website even when the page is dead.
- If you really want to remove the URLs from Google, in webmaster tool there is a remove URL section, use that and it will remove from the index for 90 days and as the header status of those URL is already 404 they will not come back again. Ever!
Hope this helps!
404 hurt rankings? In my personal experience, too many 404 on the page does!
-
I actually re-direct all of them to a page containing all the blog posts. Would that work well?
-
Have you tried submitting a new sitemap without those pages?
In general, 404 errors (assuming that this is what is happening) are not a problem as long as they are not causing major user disruption. Also, you should check that your own site is not linking to the discontinued pages.
-
Sounds like you may need to redirect those links. If they are non-related blogs, then it is a good thing you took them off. The only thing I would suggest is making these changes moderately and paying close attention in the chance that Google does update and you get docked, that way you can go back to the old version. Making extreme changes can be shown as "bad" through Google in a form of being untrustworthy.
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 selecting incorrect URL as canonical: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical'
Hi there, A number of our URLs are being de-indexed by Google. When looking into this using Google Search Console the same message is appearing on multiple pages across our sites: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical' 'IndexingIndexing allowed? YesUser-declared canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/ie/products/real-estate-financial-software/Google-selected canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/real-estate-financial-software/'Has anyone else experienced this problem?How can I get Google to select the correct, user-declared canoncial? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | nfrank0 -
Urls Too Long - Should I shorten?
On the crawl of our website we have had a warning that 157 have urls that are too long. When I look at the urls they are generally from 2016 or earlier. Should I just leave them as they are or shorten the urls and redirect to new url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | DaleZon4 -
Vanity URLs are being indexed in Google
We are currently using vanity URLs to track offline marketing, the vanity URL is structured as www.clientdomain.com/publication, this URL then is 302 redirected to the actual URL on the website not a custom landing page. The resulting redirected URL looks like: www.clientdomain.com/xyzpage?utm_source=print&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=printcampaign. We have started to notice that some of the vanity URLs are being indexed in Google search. To prevent this from happening should we be using a 301 redirect instead of a 302 and will the Google index ignore the utm parameters in the URL that is being 301 redirect to? If not, any suggestions on how to handle? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seogirl221 -
Home page URL
Hi, I work on this site: http://www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/about-us. This is the home page URL. Should this be 301'd to: http://www.towerhousetraining.co.uk? I have created a site map, which I submitted to Google Webmaster Tools, which includes these URL's: /about-us, /training-we-offer & /contact-us. There are a total of 3 pages on the website. Webmaster tools has only indexed 2 out of 3 pages. I think this is something to do with the /about-us URL, as when I do a site: search, these pages appear: www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/, /training-we-offer & /contact-us. I am not sure why Google has indexed the home page as www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/ and not /about-us? Is it a bad idea in general not to have your homepage as your root domain? I added a to the homepage, but am wondering if this was the right thing to do? Any help would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CWseo0 -
Can I remove 301 redirects after some time?
Hello, We have an very large number of 301 redirects on our site and would like to find a way to remove some of them. Is there a time frame after which Google does not need a 301 any more? For example if A is 301 redirected to B, does Google know after a while not to serve A any more, and replaces any requests for A with B? How about any links that go to A? Or: Is the only option to have all links that pointed to A point to B and then the 301 can be removed after some time? Thank you for you you help!
Technical SEO | | Veva0 -
/out/ URLs in GWMTs
I am recently seeing some URLs come up as 404s in GWMTs for a client. They look like this: http://client-url/out/www.linkedin.com/company/client-linkedin-name /out/client-url/sub-directory/postname/ We thought they might have something to do with the social plugins but they are all over the place and they are sometime for internal pages on the site. Anyone run into these and know why they are happening?
Technical SEO | | DragonSearch0 -
Having trouble removing homepage from google
For various reasons my client wants their homepage removed from google, no just the content of the page off but the page not to be indexed (yep strange request but we are mere service providers) today I requested in webmaster tool that default.asp was removed. Wht says done but the sites homepage is still listed. The page also has a no index tag on but 24 hours and 18k Google bot hits later it still remains. Anyone got any other suggestions to deindex just the homepage asap please
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Special characters in URL
Hello everybody, my question focus on special parameters in URL. I i am working for a website that use a lot of special entities in their URLS. For instance: www.mydomain.com/mykeyword1-mykeyword2%2C-1%2Cpage1.html I am about to make 301 redirect rules for all these urls to clean ones. IE: www.mydomain.com/mykeyword1-mykeyword2%2C-1%2Cpage1
Technical SEO | | objectif-mars
would become:
www.mydomain.com/mykeyword1-mykeyword.html I just wanted to know if anybody has already done this kind of "cleanup" and if i could expect a positive boost or not. Thanks0