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.
Should I "no-index" two exact pages on Google results?
-
Hello everyone,
I recently started a new wordpress website and created a static homepage.
I noticed that on Google search results, there are two different URLs landing on same content page.
I've attached an image to explain what I saw.
Should I "no-index" the page url?
In this picture, the first result is the homepage and I try to rank for that page. The last result is landing on same content with different URL.
So, should I no-index last result as shown in image?
-
In any SEO plugin, you can go to edit the secondary article and in canonical URL you put the link to the home page.
-
@amanda5964 You can use canonical meta tag to tell google that those are the exact same pages. Google will index one of them which google choose best for the SERP.
-
Hi @amanda5964 actually could I ask if there is a reason for having these identical pages? You might want to consider simply combining the pages - i.e. deleting your sub page and redirecting to home if the content is identical.
-
I would not no-index. Typically it is more effective to use a canonical link from the secondary content to the main page you want the traffic directed to.
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
-
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
To hyphenate or not to hyphenate?
Quick question: does Google differentiate between terms that correctly include a hyphen (such as "royalty-free") and those that are incorrect ("royalty free")? I ask because the correct term "royalty-free"(with a hyphen) receives far less monthly traffic for the same term without the hyphen (according to Moz): Term | Estimated traffic
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD
"royalty free music" | 11.5-30.3K
"royalty-free music" | 501-850 If Moz views the terms separately then I'd guess that Google does too, in which case the best thing to do for SEO (and increased site traffic) would be to wrongly use "royalty free" without the hyphen. Is that correct?0 -
How to rank a website in different countries
I have a website which I want to rank in UK, NZ and AU and I want to keep my domain as .com in all the countries. I have specified the lang=en now what needs to be done to rank one website in 3 different English countries without changing the domain extension i.e. .com.au or .com.nz
SEO Tactics | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Looking for an SEO expert.
We have been struggling with SEO for a while now. We are looking for an expert who can help us on the journey? Any leads?
Jobs and Opportunities | | Matthew.wainaina1 -
"Noindex, follow" for thin pages?
Hey there Mozzers, I have a question regarding Thin pages. Unfortunately, we have Thin pages, almost empty to be honest. I have the idea to ask the dev team to do "noindex, follow" on these pages. What do you think? Has someone faced this situation before? Will appreciate your input!
Technical SEO | | Europarl_SEO_Team0 -
Why is my blog disappearing from Google index?
My Google blogger blog is about 10 months old. In that time i have worked really hard with adding unique content, building relationships with other bloggers in the same niche, and done some inbound marketing. 2 weeks ago I updated the template to something cleaner, with a little more "wordpress" feel to it. This means i've messed about with the code a lot in these weeks, adding social buttons etc. The problem is that from some point late last week thurs/fri my pages started disappearing from Googles index. I have checked webmaster tools and have no manual actions. My link profile is pretty clean as its a new site, and i have manually checked every piece of content published for plagiarism etc. So what is going on? Did i break my blog? Or is something else amiss? Impressions are down 96% comparing Nov 1-5th to previous 5 days. site is here: http://bit.ly/174beVm Thanks for any help in advance.
Technical SEO | | Silkstream0 -
How Does Google's "index" find the location of pages in the "page directory" to return?
This is my understanding of how Google's search works, and I am unsure about one thing in specific: Google continuously crawls websites and stores each page it finds (let's call it "page directory") Google's "page directory" is a cache so it isn't the "live" version of the page Google has separate storage called "the index" which contains all the keywords searched. These keywords in "the index" point to the pages in the "page directory" that contain the same keywords. When someone searches a keyword, that keyword is accessed in the "index" and returns all relevant pages in the "page directory" These returned pages are given ranks based on the algorithm The one part I'm unsure of is how Google's "index" knows the location of relevant pages in the "page directory". The keyword entries in the "index" point to the "page directory" somehow. I'm thinking each page has a url in the "page directory", and the entries in the "index" contain these urls. Since Google's "page directory" is a cache, would the urls be the same as the live website (and would the keywords in the "index" point to these urls)? For example if webpage is found at wwww.website.com/page1, would the "page directory" store this page under that url in Google's cache? The reason I want to discuss this is to know the effects of changing a pages url by understanding how the search process works better.
Technical SEO | | reidsteven750 -
De-indexed from Google
Hi Search Experts! We are just launching a new site for a client with a completely new URL. The client can not provide any access details for their existing site. Any ideas how can we get the existing site de-indexed from Google? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | rikmon0