Why use noindex, follow vs rel next/prev
-
Look at what www.shutterstock.com/cat-26p3-Abstract.html
does with their search results page 3 for 'Abstract' - same for page 2-N in the paginated series.
| name="robots" content="NOINDEX, FOLLOW"> |
| |Why is this a better alternative then using the next/prev, per Google's official statement on pagination? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663744
Which doesn't even mention this as an option. Any ideas? Does this improve the odds of the first page in the paginated series ranking for the target term? There can't be a 'view all page' because there are simply too many items.
- Jeff
-
Hmmm - good thought. I wonder if Google is giving out deliberately bad advice for dealing with paginated sets, in that they never mention <noindex, follow="">as a viable alternative to next/prev. </noindex,>
If each paginated page is all unique assets (photos), why would it be dupe?
J
-
I don't think they're "gaming" Googlebot - I think they're trying to help the bots properly crawl through the site, index the relevant content, but not create hundreds of thousands of empty pages that will simply dilute their index and lower the overall value of the site in the search engine's eyes - I think they're trying to keep the Panda hungry and not provide it with lots of yummy food for it's low quality content hungry stomach.
This is why they are noindexing the pages - not to game the system, but to actually play by the system's rules.
-
Thanks Mark - if you disable javascript or impersonate Google-bot using a browser extension, then click on one of the main categories on the homepage bottom nav, you arrive here:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html
and click next, you get a URL like this: http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5p2-Education.html
which is noindex,follow
if I arrive at the site without impersonating google-bot:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html#page=2
with a canonical back to http://www.shutterstock.com/cat-5-Education.html
So it seems they are trying to literally game Google - is there any evidence this works?
-
It seems like they noindexed that page because it may be part of an antiquated version of the site navigation/structure, or part of the cms and not something they want to promote. Not sure how you got there, but when you get to the primary version of a category, and then click through to the next page, the items shown change via ajax and the URL stays the same, just with a parameter that this is the second set of items being shown.
With the url staying the same, for their primary path of navigation, I don't think rel prev/next would be relevant. And these other pages probably created by the cms but not easily accessible they've noindexed - that's my best guess
-
There's more than one way to skin a cat. So while rel next/prev is an option, you could also dump it all out in one page OR you could also noindex your search page and let your sitemap do the work of notifying Google of your pages. I don't know that it's better (I would guess not but that's just a guess) but you could do it that way and not hurt yourself.
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
-
Confused about repeated occurences of URL/essayorg/topic/ showing up as 404 errors in our site logs
Working on a Wordpress website, https://thedoctorwithin.comScanning the site’s 404 errors, I’m seeing a lot of searches for URL/essayorg/topic, coming from Bingbot, as well as other spiders (Google, OpensiteExlorer). We get at least 200 of these irrelevant requests per week. Seems like each topic that follows /essayorg/ is unique. Some include typos: /dissitation/Haven't done a verification to make sure the spiders are who they say they are, yet.Almost seems like there are many links ‘in the wild’ intended for Essay.Org that are being directed towards the site I’m working on.I've considered redirecting any requests for URL/essayorg/ to our sitemap… figuring that might encourage further spidering of actual site content. Is redirection to our sitemap xml file a good idea, or might doing so have unintended consequences? Interested in suggestions about why this might be occurring. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | linkjuiced0 -
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading (used for emphasis)?
Do you get penalized in search results when you use a heading tag, but it's not technically a heading? My clients are using heading tags for text they want to emphasize and make stand out. Does this affect search rankings for SEO?
Technical SEO | | jthompson05130 -
Rel canonical between mirrored domains
Hi all & happy new near! I'm new to SEO and could do with a spot of advice: I have a site that has several domains that mirror it (not good, I know...) So www.site.com, www.site.edu.sg, www.othersite.com all serve up the same content. I was planning to use rel="canonical" to avoid the duplication but I have a concern: Currently several of these mirrors rank - one, the .com ranks #1 on local google search for some useful keywords. the .edu.sg also shows up as #9 for a dirrerent page. In some cases I have multiple mirrors showing up on a specific serp. I would LIKE to rel canonical everything to the local edu.sg domain since this is most representative of the fact that the site is for a school in Singapore but...
Technical SEO | | AlexSG
-The .com is listed in DMOZ (this used to be important) and none of the volunteers there ever respoded to requests to update it to the .edu.sg
-The .com ranks higher than the com.sg page for non-local search so I am guessing google has some kind of algorithm to mark down obviosly local domains in other geographic locations Any opinions on this? Should I rel canonical the .com to the .edu.sg or vice versa? I appreciate any advice or opinion before I pull the trigger and end up shooting myself in the foot! Best regards from Singapore!0 -
Which Web host do you use?
A friend of mine has a successful website which is hosted by the company he used to use for developing his site. As he no longer uses them feels he should use it. Who do you use for hosting a small to medium sized business?
Technical SEO | | Ant710 -
NoIndex user generated pages?
Hi, I have a site, downorisitjustme (dot) com It has over 30,000 pages in google which have been generated by people searching to check if a specific site is working or not and then possibly adding a link to a msg board to the deeplink of the results page or something which is why the pages have been picked up. Am I best to noindex the res.php page where all the auto generated content is showing up and just have the main static pages as the only ones available to be indexed?
Technical SEO | | Wardy0 -
CamelCase vs lowernodash
I'm in the process of reviewing on-site URL structure on a few sites, and I've run into something I can't decide between. I am forced to choose between the two examples: MediaRoom/CaseStudies.aspx (camel case) mediaroom/casestudies (all lower case, mashed, no dashes) I would personally rather see: media-room/case-studies/ However implementing the dashes would require manually re-writing about ~10,000 URLs. Implementing 301s from the existing structure to whatever I choose would be trivial, so there is no concern there. Given the choice between CamelCase and lower-mashed, which would you choose? Why?
Technical SEO | | MRCSearch0 -
404 vs 301
My company is planning on discontinuing one of the product lines we currently offer. In terms of SEO, would it be better to implement a 301 redirect to a generic page page (such as the homepage or main product page), or to create a custom 404 page explaining that the product line with links to other pages (according to the most next viewed pages in Google Analytics). Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Is anyone using Media Temple?
I'm looking to move 5 of my sites from Hostgator's shared servers to Media Temple's dedicated virtual servers. Anyone have experience with (mt)? I'm planning on adding a few more sites this year and several things they offer are attractive to me: A (virtually) dedicated environment: Faster websites, better user experience, plus I like having some control over my site's resources Scalability: I can add more resources easily (although not super cheap) Unique control panels for each site: More control for my tech savvy clients. Unique IPs for $1 a month: More linkjuice between my related sites. $50/month is a big jump from my $12/month Hostgator account but I'm thinking it will be worth it. Am I on the right track or is this a fool's errand?
Technical SEO | | AaronParrish0