Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
-
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking).
I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content.
My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
-
Yes, Google will give you credit for adding value to pages. You must have them crawled as a Googlebot immediately after no indexing is removed.
Your no indexing will pass page rank of thin content could save you potentially from a penalty however if you have a better page redirected to that page using a 301.
You will not receive the existing traffic if your ranking for that keyword at all if you noindex it. Well, you'll lose a lot of it until it's fixed.
You will have more trouble ranking for that keyword if you remove the page from Google's index. However, if you feel your content is that thin I would recommend no indexing them if you are going to fix them. And you must be willing to fix them extremely soon. How are you going to rank for a term Organically if you no index it you will hurt it that is not currently getting traffic?
A NoIndex tag is an instruction to the search engines that you don’t want a page to be kept within their search results. You should use this when you believe you have a page that search engines might consider being of poor quality.
What does a noindex tag do?
- It is a directive, not a suggestion. I.e., Google will obey it, and not index the page.
- The page can still be crawled by Google.
- The page can still accumulate PageRank.
- The page can still pass PageRank via any links on the page.
(PageRank, in reality_, there are a lot of other signals that are potentially passed through any link. Better to say “signals passed” than “PageRank passed.”)_
Crawl frequency of a noindex page will decline over time.
Crawl frequency refers to how often Google returns to a page to check whether the page still exists, has any changes, and has accumulated or lost signals.
Typically crawl frequency will decline for any page that Google cannot index, for whatever reason. Google will try to recrawl a few times to check if the noindex, error, or whatever was blocking the crawl, is gone or fixed.
If the noindex instruction remains, Google will slowly start to lengthen the time to the next attempt to crawl the page, eventually reducing to a check about every two-to-three months to see if the no index tag is still there.
The no index page will be excluded from Google's search index, So it will not help you rank for that term unless you have other pages that are cannibalizing it and trying to rank for that term as well. If so 301 redirect the poor content page to the right content page.
Your question on page rank and no index yes page rank can accrue Google will still read the page. They will derive some information from the hypertext inside the URLs.
Before you remove content
The following are some guidelines you can use:
- Make an educated (non-biased) judgement: Is your content’s quality “worse” than this content?
- Do you cover the topic in enough length and sufficiently in-depth?
- Which aspects of this content is your page not covering completely?
- Which “user intent” queries is your content not answering?
- How can you make your content better?
- Can you use any great imagery or diagrams to supplement your content?
- Are there any YouTube or other videos which can add value to your content.
Iterate and do the above for all of the pages which are outranking yours. The first few are going to be the hardest — it’s likely that the rest will follow a similar pattern.
There are no short cuts. You’ll have to review all the pages which are outranking you to ensure you leave no gaps.
Update Your Content To Fully Answer The User Search Query
Once you’ve seen what you are up against, you need to update your content.
To put it simply, your content needs to be better than the competition. It also needs to fully answer the user search intent which we have identified previously.
Make it the BEST content out there.
Given that you’ve already analyzed your competitors’ content, you should have a pretty good idea of what your content is missing.
Supplement your existing content with that additional content, but
- Don’t rewrite it completely. You’ll likely lose the precious content that Google was ranking you for.
- Don’t write a new post with the hope that this will rank better. It’s a much longer and harder journey than pushing up your already existing content.
- Of course, don’t change the URL.
As discovered in this case study 468% traffic increase case study, Google will reward you for your efforts.
Use the judgment calls from your competitive research to plan what needs to be added or updated.
Enhance it with any missing content
While looking at the organic keywords which you are ranking for you might come across user search intent keywords for which you have no content.
Let’s say, for example; your content discusses enabling Joomla SEF URLs.
If in your research you find that you are ranking for “disabling Joomla SEF URLs,” make sure that your refreshed content answers that query also.
These queries are pure gold — make sure you are answering them
You can see a larger version of the photos below here
Reference
- http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/duplicate-content-problems/#thin-content-classifier
- https://www.stonetemple.com/gary-illyes-what-is-noindex-and-what-does-it-do/
- https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
** when rebuilding**
- https://moz.com/learn/seo
- https://ahrefs.com/blog/link-building/
- https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building
- http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-is-pagerank/
this is similar because it addresses turning off pages and turning them back on
I hope this helps,
Tom
-
From a Google perspective if you noindex a page sooner or later it will be removed from the index and hence you will lose your search term.
If you have no particular need to remove the pages, create new pages with the new content (Google will like that anyway), almost certainly you will find that some of those pages will outrank the thin content pages by definition in time.
In due course you could then 301 the old link which in theory will pass on most of the authority to the new page.
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
-
Is this page low quality?
Hey everyone, I need some help defining a post whether it is low quality or not. I got a post and it's a roundup post having 5 lists of fonts for free download. I actually linked to the sites from where anyone can download the font. The post is driving 300 visits a day but the bounce rate is too high around 90% and the time spent on the post is about 20 seconds on average (I checked it under GA Behaviour > Site Content > Landing pages). Also, I checked the traffic of those sites which I'm pointing in the roundup post and in their referral traffic my website is contributing. Does this mean that people clicking on the post from SERPs then quickly visiting the site to download the font as there are only 6 fonts featured in the post to download (due to six font they are not spending time)? Should I need to improve it or the page is answering query fast? Any thoughts are welcome.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bunnypundir0 -
One Page Design / Single Product Page
I have been working in a project. Create a framework for multi pages that I have So here is the case
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Roman-Delcarmen
Most of them are single page product / one page design wich means that I dont have many pages to optimize. All this sites/ pages follow the rules of a landing page optimization because my main goals is convert as many users as I can. At this point I need to optimize the SEO, the basic stuff such as header, descriptions, tittles ect. But most of my traffic is generated by affiliates, which is good beacuse I dont have to worrie to generate traffic but if the affiliate network banned my product, then I lose all my traffic. Put all my eggs in the same basket is not a good idea. Im not an seo guru so that is the reason Im asking whic strategies and tactics can give me results. All kind of ideas are welcome1 -
Company Rebranded - Domain/Page Authority Question
Our company rebranded, our old domain has pretty good PA and DA. Any way to utilize our old domain to boost PA/DA of our new domain? PS - Both are hosted on the same host (same IP).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | idlwebinc0 -
A/B Testing - Should I add product descriptions on my category landing pages as well as on product pages and if so . how to do this to avoid duplicate content
Hi All, I recently relaunched a new design on my tool hire eCommerce website and now display my products in grid form on my category landing pages as opposed to just a list view which we previously had on the old design. My bounce rates are alot higher than they use to be and my gut instinct is telling me maybe this is wrong . I want to do some a/b testing using a list view. My question is , previously in our list views we just showed the images and pricing and had on page content on the bottom of the page. The user would click on the product image and they would then we taken to the product page which has the product description , t&c, etc etc.. If I was to do this in my a/b testing but change it so we also displayed the product descriptions as well on the category landing pages . Is there a special way to do this as in effect, we would have duplicate content as the product descriptions are also on the product page?. Does anyone have any thoughts on this as to whether its a No No from an SEO point of view ?... Heres a short url link to one of my category pages - http://goo.gl/QJv5gw Historically we use to rank well for the category landing pages and not for the product pages.Our Rankings are down , bounce rates are higher so I am trying to sort both. We have good content on pages etc. Any advice greatly appreciated as always thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
How can I prevent duplicate pages being indexed because of load balancer (hosting)?
The site that I am optimising has a problem with duplicate pages being indexed as a result of the load balancer (which is required and set up by the hosting company). The load balancer passes the site through to 2 different URLs: www.domain.com www2.domain.com Some how, Google have indexed 2 of the same URLs (which I was obviously hoping they wouldn't) - the first on www and the second on www2. The hosting is a mirror image of each other (www and www2), meaning I can't upload a robots.txt to the root of www2.domain.com disallowing all. Also, I can't add a canonical script into the website header of www2.domain.com pointing the individual URLs through to www.domain.com etc. Any suggestions as to how I can resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iam-sold0 -
301 redirect for page 2, page 3 etc of an article or feed
Hey guys, We're looking to move a blog feed we have to a new static URL page. We are using 301 redirects but I'm unsure of what to regarding page 2, page 3 etc. of the feed. How do I make sure those urls are being redirected as well? For example: Moving FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/ to a new page url FloridaDentist.com/dental-tips. So, we are using a 301 on that old url to the new one. My questions is what to do with the other pages like FloridaDentist.com/blog/dental-tips/page/3. How do we make sure that page is also 301'd to the new main url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0 -
Our site is recieving traffic for both .com/page and .com/page/ with the trailing slash.
Our site is recieving traffic for both .com/page and .com/page/ with the trailing slash. Should we rewrite to just the trailing slash or without because of duplicates. The other question is, if we do a rewrite, google has indexed some pages with the slash and some without - i am assuming we will lose rank for one of them once we do the rewrite, correct?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Profero0