Removing pages from index
-
Hello,
I run an e-commerce website. I just realized that Google has "pagination" pages in the index which should not be there. In fact, I have no idea how they got there. For example, www.mydomain.com/category-name.asp?page=3434532
There are hundreds of these pages in the index. There are no links to these pages on the website, so I am assuming someone is trying to ruin my rankings by linking to the pages that do not exist.The page content displays category information with no products. I realize that its a flaw in design, and I am working on fixing it (301 none existent pages). Meanwhile, I am not sure if I should request removal of these pages. If so, what is the best way to request bulk removal.
Also, should I 301, 404 or 410 these pages?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Alex
-
yes the no content page thing is a big problem. If you have a "view all" option, and it's more than a dozen, fifteen or maybe 20 products, that should be paginated, with full indexing. Maile Oyhe even talked about that specific scenario of "view all" being good.
In my experience, all of the no-content pages should, ideally, be 301 redirected in a way that they point to the most relevant highest level category page on your site.
Since there's so many, there's no easy way to get them removed from the index other than doing the 301 then being patient as Google recrawls then re-confirms.
-
Ah - that's definitely better, if you don't go too wide. 2009 - 2010's concept of not having too many links went too far with too many people. Sites became too flat.
Categories and pagination are best served with having enough categories to cover the highest level groups, with sub-categories as appropriate, but not to the the point where there's only a few products in any single sub-category. So if you've got more than a dozen or fifteen products in a category or sub-category, pagination is perfectly valid.
Having more than six, eight or maybe ten categories at most, is also not good.
-
Alan, I think I misspoke. I meant to say that a categorically structured set of your products would be better to index than a paginated version. For example :
http://www.sunglasses.com/mens/black/productx
as opposed to http://www.sunglasses.com/products?page=233
Is it still considered wise to index both paginated results along with categorized results in this case?
-
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the info. I was going to set my page 2+ to "noindex,follow", however your reply makes sense. I will leave them indexable. I do see some competitors "rel=canonical" pagination to "view all" pages. I think I will keep my pages as is.
However, as my reply to Ryan stated, my issue is still the INDEX.
Google has thousands of "no content" pages indexed. They contain links to other "no content" pages making my site look thin. This may be the reason we lost so much ranking/traffic with Panda update.
How do I get these pages removed from the index? And do I return 301, 404 or 410 when Google comes back to reindex them?
Thanks for your help!
Alex
-
Hi Ryan,
I crawled the site, and did not find links to these pages, however it made me realize another HUGE issue. Since the paging is dynamically created, it has links to the "back" & "forward" no matter what page you are on. So, if page # 5000 is displayed, it will have links to page # 4999 and 5001. Although in my website I do not have links to pages that do not exist, all it takes is someone link to my site with "page=10000" and Google to index that page. From this point on, G will index all the PAGEs that do not exist.
Thanks again for getting me a step closer to resolving my problem.
However, the problem is still the INDEX. Google has (now realizing that its in the thousands) pages indexed with no content. These pages just contain links to other PAGING pages that have no content and my main menu/categories.
How do I get these pages removed from the index?
Thanks again!
Alex
-
For the record, that link that SSCDavis referenced includes Matt Cutts discussing faceted navigation, not pagination. Faceted navigation is different than pagination by leaps and bounds. So he (SSCDavis), with all due respect, is absolutely incorrect in his claim of what Matt said.
Maile Ohye, Senior support engineer at Google, definitely recommends allowing pagination to be indexed, if implemented properly. She even discussed this at length this week up at SMX Advanced in Seattle. Vanessa Fox, head of Nine by Blue, and former Googler (the creator of Google Webmaster Tools) agrees.
And so do I.
When performed properly, pagination (with quality optimization of paginated pages) can lead to dramatic increases in individual products indexed, higher quality visits from people further along in the buying process, and more people finding the site through an exponentially greater number of keyword phrases.
Consider this - in pagination (X number of products on the initial page, with X additional DIFFERENT products on page 2, and x additional still more and different products on page 3,etc. - by not wanting those pages indexed, you're communicating to Google - hey - we don't care about these other products enough to include them." Which means they get a false and negative understanding of how many products you have in your catalog. And THAT drives the overall strength of your catalog down.
Now, if, on the other hand, you already show ALL of your products on a top level page that is linked from the main navigation, then sure, pagination should be killed. But only if that's the case.
-
Alex,
I would highly recommend crawling your website and examining the crawl report. If Google is indexing these pages, then they got to them on your site at some point. I would proceed with the idea in mind this is a web design issue, not someone trying to ruin your rankings, as you suggested.
The crawl report will show the referrer page which can help troubleshoot the issue. When you have pages generated by a CMS or other software, there can easily be issues like the one you are experiencing. In my experience this is the most likely cause of your issue.
You mentioned there are 100s of these pages in the index. If you can determine a pattern they match, it is possible you can 301 all of them with a single rule, sending the user to your main category page or where ever you feel is best.
You can also set up a parameter specific instructions in Google WMT. I would avoid doing this until after you have reviewed your crawl report. From your Google WMT dashboard > Site Configuration > Settings > Parameter handling tab > find or add your parameter and adjust the setting as you deem fit.
-
**Edit: Please see alans answer
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
-
Redirected Old Pages Still Indexed
Hello, we migrated a domain onto a new Wordpress site over a year ago. We redirected (with plugin: simple 301 redirects) all the old urls (.asp) to the corresponding new wordpress urls (non-.asp). The old pages are still indexed by Google, even though when you click on them you are redirected to the new page. Can someone tell me reasons they would still be indexed? Do you think it is hurting my rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | phogan0 -
Removing content from Google's Indexes
Hello Mozers My client asked a very good question today. I didn't know the answer, hence this question. When you submit a 'Removing content for legal reasons report': https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_legalother?product=websearch will the person(s) owning the website containing this inflammatory content recieve any communication from Google? My clients have already had the offending URL removed by a court order which was sent to the offending company. However now the site has been relocated and the same content is glaring out at them (and their potential clients) with the title "Solicitors from Hell + Brand name" immediately under their SERPs entry. **I'm going to follow the advice of the forum and try to get the url removed via Googles report system as well as the reargard action of increasing my clients SERPs entries via Social + Content. ** However, I need to be able to firmly tell my clients the implications of submitting a report. They are worried that if they rock the boat this URL (with open access for reporting of complaints) will simply get more inflammatory)! By rocking the boat, I mean, Google informing the owners of this "Solicitors from Hell" site that they have been reported for "hosting defamatory" content. I'm hoping that Google wouldn't inform such a site, and that the only indicator would be an absence of visits. Is this the case or am I being too optimistic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | catherine-2793880 -
Getting Pages Requiring Login Indexed
Somehow certain newspapers' webpages show up in the index but require login. My client has a whole section of the site that requires a login (registration is free), and we'd love to get that content indexed. The developer offered to remove the login requirement for specific user agents (eg Googlebot, et al.). I am afraid this might get us penalized. Any insight?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo0 -
How to get around Google Removal tool not removing redirected and 404 pages? Or if you don't know the anchor text?
Hello! I can’t get squat for an answer in GWT forums. Should have brought this problem here first… The Google Removal Tool doesn't work when the original page you're trying to get recached redirects to another site. Google still reads the site as being okay, so there is no way for me to get the cache reset since I don't what text was previously on the page. For example: This: | http://0creditbalancetransfer.com/article375451_influencial_search_results_for_.htm | Redirects to this: http://abacusmortgageloans.com/GuaranteedPersonaLoanCKBK.htm?hop=duc01996 I don't even know what was on the first page. And when it redirects, I have no way of telling Google to recache the page. It's almost as if the site got deindexed, and they put in a redirect. Then there is crap like this: http://aniga.x90x.net/index.php?q=Recuperacion+Discos+Fujitsu+www.articulo.org/articulo/182/recuperacion_de_disco_duro_recuperar_datos_discos_duros_ii.html No links to my site are on there, yet Google's indexed links say that the page is linking to me. It isn't, but because I don't know HOW the page changed text-wise, I can't get the page recached. The tool also doesn't work when a page 404s. Google still reads the page as being active, but it isn't. What are my options? I literally have hundreds of such URLs. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeanGodier0 -
Category Pages up - Product Pages down... what would help?
Hi I mentioned yesterday how one of our sites was losing rank on product pages. What steps do you take to improve the SERPS of product pages, in this case home/category/product is the tree. There isn't really any internal linking, except one link from the category page to each product, would setting up a host of internal links perhaps "similar products" linking them together be a place to start? How can I improve my ranking of these more deeply internal pages? Not just internal links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | xoffie0 -
NOINDEX listing pages: Page 2, Page 3... etc?
Would it be beneficial to NOINDEX category listing pages except for the first page. For example on this site: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/101/fsx-missions/ Has lots of pages such as Page 2, Page 3, Page 4... etc: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aflyawaysimulation.com+fsx+missions Would there be any SEO benefit of NOINDEX on these pages? Of course, FOLLOW is default, so links would still be followed and juice applied. Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Will Google Visit Non-Canonicalized Page Again and Return Its Page's Original Ranking?
I have 2 questions about canonicalization. 1. Will Google ever visit Page A again if after it has been canonicalized to Page B? 2. If Google will still visit Page A and found that it is not canonicalizing to Page B already, will the original rankings and traffic of Page A returned to the way before it's canonicalized? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | globalsources.com0 -
Pop Up Pages Being Indexed, Seen As Duplicate Content
I offer users the opportunity to email and embed images from my website. (See this page http://www.andertoons.com/cartoon/6246/ and look under the large image for "Email to a Friend" and "Get Embed HTML" links.) But I'm seeing the ensuing pop-up pages (Ex: http://www.andertoons.com/embed/5231/?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=370&width=700&modal=true and http://www.andertoons.com/email/6246/?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=432&width=700&modal=true) showing up in Google. Even worse, I think they're seen as duplicate content. How should I deal with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andertoons0