Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Page with metatag noindex is STILL being indexed?!
-
Hi Mozers,
There are over 200 pages from our site that have a meta tag "noindex" but are STILL being indexed.
What else can I do to remove them from the Index?
-
Google might not be seeing the "noindex" tag because it has not crawled it recently. Make sure you check the latest cache date and check if you can see the noindex tag in the cached version. It is very important to make sure you are not blocking the URLs in robots.txt as if you do Google will not see the noindex tag if it cannot get past the block in robots.txt.
-
In order for your NOINDEX tag to work, the page has to be crawled. So, I would first look and make sure that you do not have it blocked from crawling in your robots.txt. file. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but you have to allow a page to be crawled in order for the search engines to read and process the NOINDEX tags on that page.
If you are already sure that these pages are allowed to be crawled in your robots.txt file, then the next step would be to encourage them to be crawled, or to temporarily purge them from the index until they are next crawled. The old Search Console UI still has the "Remove URLs" function (and it is hyperlinked form the new search console as well). Use that to temporarily remove the pages, until the next time they are crawled when the search engine can discover the NOINDEX tag.
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
-
Should I index resource submission forms, thank you pages, etc.?
Should I index resource submission forms, thank you, event pages, etc.? Doesn't Google consider this content too thin?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
If a page ranks in the wrong country and is redirected, does that problem pass to the new page?
Hi guys, I'm having a weird problem: A new multilingual site was launched about 2 months ago. It has correct hreflang tags and Geo targetting in GSC for every language version. We redirected some relevant pages (with good PA) from another website of our client's. It turned out that the pages were not ranking in the correct country markets (for example, the en-gb page ranking in the USA). The pages from our site seem to have the same problem. Do you think they inherited it due to the redirects? Is it possible that Google will sort things out over some time, given the fact that the new pages have correct hreflangs? Is there stuff we could do to help ranking in the correct country markets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ParisChildress1 -
What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?
Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity?
Hello everyone, Maybe it is a stupid question, but I ask to the experts... What's the best way to noindex pages but still keep backlinks equity from those noindexed pages? For example, let's say I have many pages that look similar to a "main" page which I solely want to appear on Google, so I want to noindex all pages with the exception of that "main" page... but, what if I also want to transfer any possible link equity present on the noindexed pages to the main page? The only solution I have thought is to add a canonical tag pointing to the main page on those noindexed pages... but will that work or cause wreak havoc in some way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fablau3 -
How to check if the page is indexable for SEs?
Hi, I'm building the extension for Chrome, which should show me the status of the indexability of the page I'm on. So, I need to know all the methods to check if the page has the potential to be crawled and indexed by a Search Engines. I've come up with a few methods: Check the URL in robots.txt file (if it's not disallowed) Check page metas (if there are not noindex meta) Check if page is the same for unregistered users (for those pages only available for registered users of the site) Are there any more methods to check if a particular page is indexable (or not closed for indexation) by Search Engines? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | boostaman0 -
Should my back links go to home page or internal pages
Right now we rank on page 2 for many KWs, so should i now focus my attention on getting links to my home page to build domain authority or continue to direct links to the internal pages for specific KWs? I am about to write some articles for several good ranking sites and want to know whether to link my company name (same as domain name) or KW to the home page or use individual KWs to the internal pages - I am only allowed one link per article to my site. Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
NoIndexing Massive Pages all at once: Good or bad?
If you have a site with a few thousand high quality and authoritative pages, and tens of thousands with search results and tags pages with thin content, and noindex,follow the thin content pages all at once, will google see this is a good or bad thing? I am only trying to do what Google guidelines suggest, but since I have so many pages index on my site, will throwing the noindex tag on ~80% of thin content pages negatively impact my site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
NOINDEX or NOINDEX,FOLLOW
Currently we employ this tag on pages we want to keep out of the index but want link juice to flow through them: <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX"> Is the tag above the same as: <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW"> Or should we be specifying the "FOLLOW" in our tag?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640
