Old pages still in index
-
Hi Guys,
I've been working on a E-commerce site for a while now. Let me sum it up :
- February new site is launched
- Due to lack of resources we started 301's of old url's in March
- Added rel=canonical end of May because of huge index numbers (developers forgot!!)
- Added noindex and robots.txt on at least 1000 urls.
- Index numbers went down from 105.000 tot 55.000 for now, see screenshot (actual number in sitemap is 13.000)
Now when i do site:domain.com there are still old url's in the index while there is a 301 on the url since March!
I know this can take a while but I wonder how I can speed this up or am doing something wrong. Hope anyone can help because I simply don't know how the old url's can still be in the index.
-
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the answer!
Indexation is already back to 42.000 so slowly going back to normal
And thanks for the last tip, that's totally right. I just discovered that several pages had duplicate url's generated so by continually monitoring we'll fix it !
-
Hi There
To noindex pages there are a few methods;
-
use a meta noindex without robots.txt - I think that is why some may not be removed. The robots.txt block crawling so they can not see the noindex.
-
use a 301 redirect - this will eventually kill off the old pages, but it can definitely take a while.
-
canonical it to another page. and as Chris says, don't block the page or add extra directives. If you canonical the page (correctly), I find it usually drops out of the index fairly quickly after being crawled.
-
use the URL removal tool in webmaster tools + robots.txt or 404. So if you 404 a page or block it with robots.txt you can then go into webmaster tools and do a URL removal. This is NOT recommended though in most normal cases, as Google prefers this be for "emergencies".
The only method that removes pages within a day or two guaranteed is the URL removal tool.
I would also examine your site since it is new, for something that is causing additional pages to be generated and indexed. I see this a lot with ecommerce sites where they have lots of pagination, facets, sorting, etc and those can generate lots of other pages which get indexed.
Again, as Chris says, you want to be careful to not mix signals. Hope this all helps!
-Dan
-
-
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your answer.
I'm either using a 301 or noindex, not both of course.
Still have to check the server logs, thanks for that!
Another weird thing. While the old url is still in the index, when i check the cache date it's a week old. That's what i don't get. Cache date is a week old but Google still has the old url in the index.
-
It can take months for pages to fall out of Google's index have you looked at your log files to verify that googlebot is crawling those pages?. Things to keep in mind:
- If you 301 a page, the rel=canonical on that page will not be seen by the bot (no biggie in your case)
- If you 301 a page, a meta noindex will not be seen by the bot
- It is suggested not to use the robots.txt to no index a page that is being 301 redirected--as the redirect may not be seen by Google.
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
-
Crawling/indexing of near duplicate product pages
Hi, Hope someone can help me out here. This is the current situation: We sell stones/gravel/sand/pebbles etc. for gardens. I will take a type of pebbles and the corresponding pages/URL's to illustrate my question --> black beach pebbles. We have a 'top' product page for black beach pebbles on which you can find different types of quantities (differing from 20kg untill 1600 kg). There is not any search volume related to the different quantities The 'top' page does not link to the pages for the different quantities The content on the pages for the different quantities is not exactly the same (different price + slightly different content). But a lot of the content is the same. Current situation:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMAGARD
- Most pages for the different quantities do not have internal links (about 95%) But the sitemap does contain all of these pages. Because the sitemap contains all these URL's, google frequently crawls them (I checked the logfiles) and has indexed them. Problems: Google spends its time crawling irrelevant pages --> our entire website is not that big, so these quantity URL's kind of double the total number of URL's. Having url's in the sitemap that do not have an internal link is a problem on its own All these pages are indexed so all sorts of gravel/pebbles have near duplicates. My solution: remove these URL's from the sitemap --> that will probably stop Google from regularly crawling these pages Putting a canonical on the quantity pages pointing to the top-product page. --> that will hopefully remove the irrelevant (no search volume) near duplicates from the index My questions: To be able to see the canonical, google will need to crawl these pages. Will google still do that after removing them from the sitemap? Do you agree that these pages are near duplicates and that it is best to remove them from the index? A few of these quantity pages do have intenral links (a few procent of them) because of a sale campaign. So there will be some (not much) internal links pointing to non-canonical pages. Would that be a problem? Thanks a lot in advance for your help! Best!1 -
Recommend Layout Page (home, categories or section, individual page)
Hello Could you please share with me your advice and recommendations on how to design a SEO layout (H1, Image, body text, etc). I need to give instructions to our website designer. I would like to see some examples. We are going to work with wordpress and visual composer. I really appreciate your help and time Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GHSCostaRica0 -
Keep Pages with Old Dates?
We have a tourism related site. We list annual events. Right now the URL extension includes the year. I assume it is better to keep the same page and update the dates, thereby keeping any links, ranking trust and authority we built. Is that the best strategy by updating the event info with the new dates? I would assume with a new page for the new year we would be starting over again and would have too much similar content and link diffusion. And in the future are we better off not including the year in the URL extension?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ebtec0 -
Should discontinued crusty old products (but still new stock) be listed on site?
Some may think this is not good to do for us, because it tarnishes the image of the site as being: "These guys are pawing off old stuff and not carrying up to date products. It would be a waste of our time to try to sell it off of our site." ... even though 89% of are items are new and up to date products. (My feelings on this would be the opposite: I want all the old crusty stuff up there because it makes it available to a much bigger market area.... called "The World". lol! To me, if it's not moving in our market, it means we bought the wrong item for our market and we need to offer it up to "The World". Maybe I'm way off here, but are there any other spins on thoughts on this? ) Thanks, Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kevin_McLeish0 -
Certain Product Pages Not Indexing
Hey All, We discovered an issue where new product pages on our site were not getting indexed because a "noindex" tag was inadvertently being added to section when those pages were created. We removed the noindex tag in late April and some of the pages that had not been previously indexed are now showing up, but others are still not getting indexed and I'd appreciate some help on why this could be. Here is an example of a page that was not in the index but is now showing after removal of noindex: http://www.cloud9living.com/san-diego/gaslamp-quarter-food-tour And here is an example of a page that is still not showing in the index: http://www.cloud9living.com/atlanta/race-a-ferrari UPDATE: The above page is now showing after I manually submitted it in WMT. I had previously submitted another page like a month ago and it was still not indexing so I thought the manual submission was a dead end. However, it just so happens that the above URL just had its Page Title and H1 updated to something more specific and less duplicative so I am currently running a test to see if that's the problem with these pages not indexing. Will update this soon. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GManSEO0 -
Certain Pages Not Being Indexed - Please Help
We are having trouble getting a bulk of our pages indexed in google. Any help would be greatly appreciated! The Following Page types are being indexed through escaped fragment: http://www.cbuy.tv/#! http://www.cbuy.tv/celebrity#!65-Ashley-Tisdale/fashion/4097-Casadei-BLADE-PUMP/Product/175199 <cite>www.cbuy.tv/celebrity/155-Sophia-Bush#!</cite> However, all our pages that look like this, are not being indexed: http://www.cbuy.tv/#!Type=Photo&id=b1d18759-5e52-4a1c-9491-6fb3cb9d4b95&Katie-Holmes-Hot-Pink-Pants-Isabel-Marant-DAVID-DOUBLE-BREASTED-Wool-COAT-Maison-Pumps-Black-Bag
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CBuy0 -
Software to monitor indexed pages
Dear SEO moz, As a SEO marketer on a pretty big website I noticed a HUGE amount of dropping pages indexed by google. We did not do anything to block googleblot in the past 6 months, but since November the number of indexed pages decreased from 3.4 milion (3,400.000) to 7 hundred thousand (700,000). Obviously I want to know which pages are de-indexed. Does anyone you know a tool which can do this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JorisHas1 -
Is there an optimal ratio of external links to a page vs internal links originating at that page ?
I understand that multiple links fro a site dilute link juice. I also understand that external links to a specific page with relevant anchortext helps ranking. I wonder if there is an ideal ratioof tgese two items
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Apluswhs0