Adding Orphaned Pages to the Google Index
-
Hey folks,
How do you think Google will treat adding 300K orphaned pages to a 4.5 million page site. The URLs would resolve but there would be no on site navigation to those pages, Google would only know about them through sitemap.xmls.
These pages are super low competition.
The plot thickens, what we are really after is to get 150k real pages back on the site, these pages do have crawlable paths on the site but in order to do that (for technical reasons) we need to push these other 300k orphaned pages live (it's an all or nothing deal)
a) Do you think Google will have a problem with this or just decide to not index some or most these pages since they are orphaned.
b) If these pages will just fall out of the index or not get included, and have no chance of ever accumulating PR anyway since they are not linked to, would it make sense to just noindex them?
c) Should we not submit sitemap.xml files at all, and take our 150k and just ignore these 300k and hope Google ignores them as well since they are orhpaned?
d) If Google is OK with this maybe we should submit the sitemap.xmls and keep an eye on the pages, maybe they will rank and bring us a bit of traffic, but we don't want to do that if it could be an issue with Google.
Thanks for your opinions and if you have any hard evidence either way especially thanks for that info.
-
it's not a strategy, it's due to technical limitations on the dev side. i agree though thanks.
So, I asked this question to a very advanced SEO guru and he said they could be seen as doorways and present some risk and advised against it. That combined with the probability that they will most likely get dropped from Google's index anyway and we know that Google says they want pages to be part of the sites architecture has me leaning towards nofollowing all of them and maybe experiment with allowing 1000 to get indexed and see what happens with them.
Thanks for your input folks
-
I'd go back to the drawing board and rework your strategy.
Do you need additional sites? 150K orphaned pages you want indexed sounds spammy or poor site architecture to me.
-
Yikes, I didn't know the site was that big. Still, if you're afraid of how Google would "react" to those orphaned pages, I'd still test small, regardless of how large your overall site is.
-
Yea 1000 is probably a big enough sample.
10,000 seems like a lot i guess but not when you've got a site with 4.5 million pages.
-
yea submitting sitemap.xml files for 300k pages that are not part of the site seems a bit obnoxious.
-
we definitely want the 150k in the index since they are legitimate pages and linked to on the site. it's the 300k of orphaned ones we have to take along as a package deal that i am worried about. too many orphaned pages for Google.
-
That's a good idea. 10,000 Is still a lot. You could even test fewer than 10,000 pages. Why not try 1,000?
-
Hmmm. I am leaning towards the following solution since I would rather be on the cautious side, maybe this makes sense?
a) we noindex these 300k orphaned pages and do not submit sitemap.xml files
b) we experiment with say 10,000 pages and we allow only those to get indexed and submit sitemap.xml files for them
c) we closely monitor their indexing and ranking performance so we can determine if these are even worth opening up to Google and taking any risk.
-
In my opinion, add the 150k pages in the site map along with the 300k pages, let Google index all the pages and once they are all indexed , you can take a call on de indexing the 150k pages based on their traction.
-
I have no hard evidence, but if it were my site, I would do option C but keep an eye on what happens, and if I noticed anything strange happening, I would implement option B. But if option C makes you nervous, I see no reason you couldn't or shouldn't noindex them right off the bat.
That's merely one person's opinion, however.
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
-
May integrating my main category page in the index page improve my ranking of main category keyword?
90% of our sales are made with products in one of our product categories.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
A search for main category keyword returns our root domain index page in google, not the category page.
I was wondering whether integrating the complete main category directly in the index page of the root domain and this way including much more relevant content for this main category keyword may have a positive impact on our google ranking for the main category keyword. Any thoughts?1 -
Keyword On Page 1 Everywhere but Google (Site Specific)
Website: www.wheelchairparts.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mike.Bean
Keyword: wheelchair parts My website is #1 or #2 on almost every search engine besides Google. Google has us bouncing between the bottom of page 2 and top of 3. However we are on page one for "wheelchairparts". I need to get a link building campaign going for this site. I feel it's more difficult for ecommerce websites and nothing seems to fit in with Rand's Mozcon 2016 Link Building talk except hacks. I need to find a flywheel. Either way, my question is what can I do other than link building to get on page 1 of Google for the term "wheelchair parts"? Thanks in advance! - Mike Bean1 -
Google is indexing wrong page for search terms not on that page
I’m having a problem … the wrong page is indexing with Google, for search phrases “not on that page”. Explained … On a website I developed, I have four products. For example sake, we’ll say these four products are: Sneakers (search phrase: sneakers) Boots (search phrase: boots) Sandals (search phrase: sandals) High heels (search phrase: high heels) Error: What is going “wrong” is … When the search phrase “high heels” is indexed by Google, my “Sneakers” page is being indexed instead (and ranking very well, like #2). The page that SHOULD be indexing, is the “High heels” page (not the sneakers page – this is the wrong search phrase, and it’s not even on that product page – not in URL, not in H1 tags, not in title, not in page text – nowhere, except for in the top navigation link). Clue #1 … this same error is ALSO happening for my other search phrases, in exactly the same manner. i.e. … the search phrase “sandals” is ALSO resulting in my “Sneakers” page being indexed, by Google. Clue #2 … this error is NOT happening with Bing (the proper pages are correctly indexing with the proper search phrases, in Bing). Note 1: MOZ has given all my product pages an “A” ranking, for optimization. Note 2: This is a WordPress website. Note 3: I had recently migrated (3 months ago) most of this new website’s page content (but not the “Sneakers” page – this page is new) from an old, existing website (not mine), which had been indexing OK for these search phrases. Note 4: 301 redirects were used, for all of the OLD website pages, to the new website. I have tried everything I can think of to fix this, over a period of more than 30 days. Nothing has worked. I think the “clues” (it indexes properly in Bing) are useful, but I need help. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MG_Lomb_SEO0 -
Removing pages from index
My client is running 4 websites on ModX CMS and using the same database for all the sites. Roger has discovered that one of the sites has 2050 302 redirects pointing to the clients other sites. The Sitemap for the site in question includes 860 pages. Google Webmaster Tools has indexed 540 pages. Roger has discovered 5200 pages and a Site: query of Google reveals 7200 pages. Diving into the SERP results many of the pages indexed are pointing to the other 3 sites. I believe there is a configuration problem with the site because the other sites when crawled do not have a huge volume of redirects. My concern is how can we remove from Google's index the 2050 pages that are redirecting to the other sites via a 302 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tinbum0 -
Fixing A Page Google Omits In Search
Hi, I have two pages ranking for the same keyword phrase. Unfortunately, the wrong page is ranking higher, and the other page, only ranks when you include the omitted results. When you have a page that only shows when its omitted, is that because the content is too similar in google's eyes? Could there be any other possible reason? The content really shouldn't be flagged as duplicate, but if this is the only reason, I can change it around some more. I'm just trying to figure out the root cause before I start messing with anything. Here are the two links, if that's necessary. http://www.kempruge.com/personal-injury/ http://www.kempruge.com/location/tampa/tampa-personal-injury-legal-attorneys/ Best, Ruben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Does Google only look at LSI per page or context of the Site?
From what I have read i should optimise each page for a keyword/phrase, however, I read recently that google may also look at the context of the site to see if there are other similar words. For example i have different pages optimised for Funeral Planning, funeral plans, funeral plan costs, compare funeral plans, why buy a funeral plan, paying for a funeral, prepaid funeral plans. Is this the best strategy when the words/phrases are so close or should i go for longer pages with the variations on one page or at least less pages? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Does Google make continued attempts to crawl an old page one it has followed a 301 to the new page?
I am curious about this for a couple of reasons. We have all dealt with a site who switched platforms and didn't plan properly and now have 1,000's of crawl errors. Many of the developers I have talked to have stated very clearly that the HTacccess file should not be used for 1,000's of singe redirects. I figured If I only needed them in their temporarily it wouldn't be an issue. I am curious if once Google follows a 301 from an old page to a new page, will they stop crawling the old page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RossFruin0 -
How can we get a site reconsidered for Google indexing?
We recently completed a re-design for a site and are having trouble getting it indexed. This site may have been penalized previously. They were having issues getting it ranked and the design was horrible. Any advise on how to get the new site reconsidered to get the rank where it should be? (Yes, Webmaster Tools is all set up with the sitemap linked) Many thanks for any help with this one!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | d25kart0