Potential downside of removing past years' calendar events
-
hi there. my website is for a school. We have several calendars for athletic events, school events, etc. there are thousands of events each year that link to pages for each event. the URLs/pages are generated dynamically, and the urls and pages are very similar from year to year, so we're being penalized for duplicate content. I can delete past years events in bulk, but there's no way to redirect them in bulk. am i taking a big chance by deleting events that occurred prior to 1/1/2019?
-
Thank you for your response.
The old pages give us very little traffic--as few as ONE page view over the past six month
Here's an example:
https://www.landmarkschool.org/calendar/day/2018-01-06 1 page view (obviously NOT a lot of traffic)
https://www.landmarkschool.org/calendar/day/2019-01-06
Another issue is that these events are generated from the calendar but don't have /calendar/ in the url, and I'm getting penalized for duplicate content.
https://www.landmarkschool.org/blue-day-47
https://www.landmarkschool.org/blue-day-48
https://www.landmarkschool.org/performing-arts-tech-weekend
https://www.landmarkschool.org/performing-arts-tech-weekend-0
https://www.landmarkschool.org/performing-arts-tech-weekend-1
https://www.landmarkschool.org/performing-arts-tech-weekend-2
Any advice is appreciated!
-
You got any example do the URL structures? Also do the old URLs give you any traffic?
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
-
After hack and remediation, thousands of URL's still appearing as 'Valid' in google search console. How to remedy?
I'm working on a site that was hacked in March 2019 and in the process, nearly 900,000 spam links were generated and indexed. After remediation of the hack in April 2019, the spammy URLs began dropping out of the index until last week, when Search Console showed around 8,000 as "Indexed, not submitted in sitemap" but listed as "Valid" in the coverage report and many of them are still hack-related URLs that are listed as being indexed in March 2019, despite the fact that clicking on them leads to a 404. As of this Saturday, the number jumped up to 18,000, but I have no way of finding out using the search console reports why the jump happened or what are the new URLs that were added, the only sort mechanism is last crawled and they don't show up there. How long can I expect it to take for these remaining urls to also be removed from the index? Is there any way to expedite the process? I've submitted a 'new' sitemap several times, which (so far) has not helped. Is there any way to see inside the new GSC view why/how the number of valid URLs in the indexed doubled over one weekend?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rickyporco0 -
Do 404s really 'lose' link juice?
It doesn't make sense to me that a 404 causes a loss in link juice, although that is what I've read. What if you have a page that is legitimate -- think of a merchant oriented page where you sell an item for a given merchant --, and then the merchant closes his doors. It makes little sense 5 years later to still have their merchant page so why would removing them from your site in any way hurt your site? I could redirect forever but that makes little sense. What makes sense to me is keeping the page for a while with an explanation and options for 'similar' products, and then eventually putting in a 404. I would think the eventual dropping out of the index actually REDUCES the overall link juice (ie less pages), so there is no harm in using a 404 in this way. It also is a way to avoid the site just getting bigger and bigger and having more and more 'bad' user experiences over time. Am I looking at it wrong? ps I've included this in 'link building' because it is related in a sense -- link 'paring'.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood0 -
Website with only a portion being 'mobile friendly' -- what to tell Google?
I have a website for desktop that does a lot of things, and have converted part of it do show pages in a mobile friendly format based on the users device. Not responsive design, but actual diff code with different formatting by mobile vs desktop--but each still share the same page url name. Google allows this approach. The mobile-friendly part of the site is not as extensive as desktop, so there are pages that apply to the desktop but not for mobile. So the functionality is limited some for mobile devices, and therefore some pages should only be indexed for desktop users. How should that page be handled for Google crawlers? If it is given a 404 not found for their mobile bot will Google properly still crawl it for the desktop, or will Google see that the url was flagged as 'not found' and not crawl it for the desktop? I asked a similar question yest, but it was not stated clearly. Thanks,Ted
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | friendoffood0 -
Removing content from Google's Indexes
Hello Mozers My client asked a very good question today. I didn't know the answer, hence this question. When you submit a 'Removing content for legal reasons report': https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_legalother?product=websearch will the person(s) owning the website containing this inflammatory content recieve any communication from Google? My clients have already had the offending URL removed by a court order which was sent to the offending company. However now the site has been relocated and the same content is glaring out at them (and their potential clients) with the title "Solicitors from Hell + Brand name" immediately under their SERPs entry. **I'm going to follow the advice of the forum and try to get the url removed via Googles report system as well as the reargard action of increasing my clients SERPs entries via Social + Content. ** However, I need to be able to firmly tell my clients the implications of submitting a report. They are worried that if they rock the boat this URL (with open access for reporting of complaints) will simply get more inflammatory)! By rocking the boat, I mean, Google informing the owners of this "Solicitors from Hell" site that they have been reported for "hosting defamatory" content. I'm hoping that Google wouldn't inform such a site, and that the only indicator would be an absence of visits. Is this the case or am I being too optimistic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | catherine-2793880 -
I'm I being penalize? I fell off SERP for main keyword
I have been making minor changes to my site like fixing 404 pages and adding site maps etc. I have ranked as high as 3rd for the query 'private equity firms' but now Im showing the site around the 10th page and some times never. any ideas what could be going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nicktaylor10 -
Do Q&A 's work for SEO
If I create a good community in my particular field on my SEO site and have a quality Q&A section like this etc (ripping of MOZ's idea here sorry, I hope it's ok) will the long term returns be worth the effort of creating and man ageing this. Is the user created content of as much use as I think it will be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mark_baird0 -
How 'Off Topic' can I go - site wide?
Hello, I am currently number 1 for a competitive keyword - so don't want to push the wrong button and self destruct! My site is highly focused on one relatively narrow niche with about 50-60 pages of content bang on topic. I was wondering if Google will discredit my site in any way if I start adding pages that are** 'loosely related' **to the overall theme of my niche. Some of them are what you might call sister concepts with maybe one mention of my target keyword in the body..... Does the algo value what percentage of the whole site's content is on/ off topic? If so how important is this as a factor? Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | philipjterry0 -
What's your best hidden SEO secret?
Don't take that question too serious but all answers are welcome 😉 Answer to all:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | petrakraft
"Gentlemen, I see you did you best - at least I hope so! But after all I suppose I am stuck here to go on reading the SEOmoz blog if I can't sqeeze more secrets from you!9