Our subdomain hosts content that can not be optimized (static videos) - should I de-index it?
-
We host static tours on a subdomain that points to the video tour host. I can not add meta or optimize any of these video pages and there are thousands. Should I de-index the entire subdomain? I am seeing errors for no meta, dup content etc in MOZ reporting.
If yes, do I add the Disallow: /subdomain.root.nl/ to the primary domain's website/CMS or in DNS records ? Our web company is saying the no follow needs to be added in DNS but I feel like it should be added to the robots.txt file if SERP's are going to acknowledge the sub is no longer to be crawled and the primary is no longer to be penalized.
Thank you so much in advance!
-
Thanks you Serge! Sorry for the delay - I appreciate your help so so much!
So...
the primary is masonmorse.com
the subdomain is tours.masonmorse.com - all the content on the subdomain can not be optimized and there are thousands of video pages that all appear the same (they load them by broker name) - it has no other content and we do not want these to be indexed (we post them elsewhere and optimize) nor do we want to be penalized for the duplicate content and missing meta.
I thought our web company could ad the disallow txt file on the main site (masonmorse.com) but they are telling me I need to add it to the DNS record. Could you guide me to where the disallow needs to be added since the web company we work with seems to not understand my request at all.
Thank you!
-
Hi there,
A few things:
- If there are thousands of pages on your site that only contain a video per page, that would be considered thin content from an SEO perspective. If you are trying to fix that I would recommend adding a noindex tag to all of the video pages, resubmitting those URLs to search console (or wait until Google crawls them), and then once the pages are removed from in the index I would add a disallow rule in the robots.txt file to prevent Google from crawling them.
- Another question: does the subdomain have any other content? Are the videos used elsewhere? It sounds like the videos themselves could be valuable from a business perspective and SEO is only one part of a site's success - I'd be thinking about how else I could utilize them in search (or other channels).
- Happy to look further if you want to post the subdomain - hopefully I understand correctly.
Hope that helps!
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 Indexing
Hi We have roughly 8500 pages in our website. Google had indexed almost 6000 of them, but now suddenly I see that the pages indexed has gone to 45. Any possible explanations why this might be happening and what can be done for it. Thanks, Priyam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kh-priyam0 -
Can anyone help me diagnose an indexing/sitemap issue on a large e-commerce site?
Hey guys. Wondering if someone can help diagnose a problem for me. Here's our site: https://www.flagandbanner.com/ We have a fairly large e-commerce site--roughly 23,000 urls according to crawls using both Moz and Screaming Frog. I have created an XML sitemap (using SF) and uploading to Webmaster Tools. WMT is only showing about 2,500 urls indexed. Further, WMT is showing that Google is indexing only about 1/2 (approx. 11,000) of the urls. Finally (to add even more confusion), when doing a site search on Google (site:) it's only showing about 5,400 urls found. The numbers are all over the place! Here's the robots.txt file: User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | webrocket
Allow: /
Disallow: /aspnet_client/
Disallow: /httperrors/
Disallow: /HTTPErrors/
Disallow: /temp/
Disallow: /test/ Disallow: /i_i_email_friend_request
Disallow: /i_i_narrow_your_search
Disallow: /shopping_cart
Disallow: /add_product_to_favorites
Disallow: /email_friend_request
Disallow: /searchformaction
Disallow: /search_keyword
Disallow: /page=
Disallow: /hid=
Disallow: /fab/* Sitemap: https://www.flagandbanner.com/images/sitemap.xml Anyone have any thoughts as to what our problems are?? Mike0 -
How many outbound links, we can add to our blog content?
We can add any number of links? from authority websites? Like - http://packforcity.com/save-money-on-a-trip-to-disneyland/ http://packforcity.com/how-to-save-money-when-traveling-to-disneyland-part-2/ http://packforcity.com/new-york-city-top-faqs-for-travels/ http://packforcity.com/what-to-wear-in-kyoto-in-february/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward0 -
Differentiating Content
I have a piece of content (that is similar) that legitimately shows up on two different sites. I would like both to link, but it seems as if they are "flip flopping" in ranking. Sometimes one shows up, sometimes another. What's the best way to differentiate a piece of content like this? Does it mean rewriting one entirely? http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/solutions/ada-handrail/ http://simplifiedsafety.com/solutions/ada-handrail/ I want to the Simplified Building one to be found first if I had a preference.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CPollock0 -
How do you archive content?
In this video from Google Webmasters about content, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8s6Y4mx9Vw around 0:57 it is advised to "archive any content that is no longer relevant". My question is how do you exactly do that? By adding noindex to those pages, by removing all internal links to that page, by completely removing those from the website? How do you technically archive content? watch?v=y8s6Y4mx9Vw
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SorinaDascalu1 -
Over-Optimized?
I have been hearing that the latest algorithmic changes address "Over-Optimization", which sounds very counter-productive for businesses. Why would Google hurt the companies that have a narrow market or product offering? Regarding over-optimization, does SEOmoz have a tool to help address those issues? We saw a strange decrease in our "LMS" keyword, which is the core keyword for http://interactyx.com. I am trying to figure out if we are over-optimized. Can anyone provide any suggestions and tools I can use to make sure my site now matches what Google wants? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TOPYX0 -
Optimize short tail keyword by optimizing long tail keyword
Many SEO's said that if i have a keyword suppose 'coat stand' that is very competitive and second keyword is 'cheap coat stand' that is less competitive .If we promote long tail keyword (cheap coat stand) than ranking of 'coat stand' will improve.Is it true?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alick3000 -
Can you be penalized by a development server with duplicate content?
I developed a site for another company late last year and after a few months of seo done by them they were getting good rankings for hundreds of keywords. When penguin hit they seemed to benefit and had many top 3 rankings. Then their rankings dropped one day early May. Site is still indexed and they still rank for their domain. After some digging they found the development server had a copy of the site (not 100% duplicate). We neglected to hide the site from the crawlers, although there were no links built and we hadn't done any optimization like meta descriptions etc. The company was justifiably upset. We contacted Google and let them know the site should not have been indexed, and asked they reconsider any penalties that may have been placed on the original site. We have not heard back from them as yet. I am wondering if this really was the cause of the penalty though. Here are a few more facts: Rankings built during late March / April on an aged domain with a site that went live in December. Between April 14-16 they lost about 250 links, mostly from one domain. They acquired those links about a month before. They went from 0 to 1130 links between Dec and April, then back to around 870 currently According to ahrefs.com they went from 5 ranked keywords in March to 200 in April to 800 in May, now down to 500 and dropping (I believe their data lags by at least a couple of weeks). So the bottom line is this site appeared to have suddenly ranked well for about a month then got hit with a penalty and are not in top 10 pages for most keywords anymore. I would love to hear any opinions on whether a duplicate site that had no links could be the cause of this penalty? I have read there is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty per se. I am of the (amateur) opinion that it may have had more to do with the quick sudden rise in the rankings triggering something. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmsmall0