Having trouble removing homepage from google
-
For various reasons my client wants their homepage removed from google, no just the content of the page off but the page not to be indexed (yep strange request but we are mere service providers) today I requested in webmaster tool that default.asp was removed. Wht says done but the sites homepage is still listed. The page also has a no index tag on but 24 hours and 18k Google bot hits later it still remains.
Anyone got any other suggestions to deindex just the homepage asap please
-
yes, we have resorted to this. We have a canonical tag to the blocked .com version of the site so hopefully that gets rid of the page. The client want's it removed 'yesterday' but only so much I can do when I don't control Google personally!
Thanks again for the advice
-
Unfortunately, GWT removal is one of the fastest ways I know of. If Google isn't honoring that, they're probably trying (in their minds) to protect you from de-indexing your home-page. I think the next most extreme step would be to rel-canonical your home-page to another page (possibly even another site) - that's going to be hard to undo later, though.
-
Very true, I agree with you fully on this. However the client is very much in a 'get it out of the engine and we will worry about the traffic 'tomorrow'' frame of mind.
To be honest as long as the page still works for direct traffic we could seo a replacement homepage /welcome.asp to rank for the company name easily enough but for now it's the hassle of trying to get the page out
-
I agree. You never want to de-index your homepage as (in my opinion) the heart of your website. You're showing willing to co-operate by removing references of the trademark throughout your site and personally I would think that would be sufficient.
If you have pages within your site then I would use a .htaccess 301 redirect for the pages in question and redirect users to the homepage instead, that way you attribute the page rank (link juice) from the removed pages back to the homepage.
If the client has suggested you remove the index from the homepage I would cover your back and write a letter informing them of the negative issues of de-indexing the homepage and just say that it can be done but you hold no responsibility for loss of search engine traffic as a result. It might also be worth adding an annotation within Google Analytics noting the date the homepage was de-indexed so the client (and you) can see the impact it has on the site.
-
I fully agree with you about the trademark but you know clients can be when they hear the words 'legal action. Hopefully we can get the page out and appease the trademark owner.
Thanks for your advice on this matter
-
I'm not a legal expert, but are they still using the trademark on the home-page? If they're not using it at all, but are only ranking on it from past efforts, there's not much of a case. They can't control the algorithm - they can only remove references on the site. Of course, it depends on how pervasive those references are and how much you want to fight it.
I just worry that de-indexing the home-page is going to have much broader, long-term consequences.
If you want to make the party threatening action happy at any cost to your site, you could rel-canonical your home-page to their home-page. I wouldn't do it, but it's another possibility.
Ultimately, though, all these things take time to process. If you, in good faith, have removed all trademark references and have requested removal with Google, you can't control the rest and I doubt you're liable for it.
-
It's a very strange situation I admit. The main reason is that they used to have a contract to supply certain services on behalf on a third party. They seoed for the company name but have since lost the contract and now being threatened with legal action for ranking for the trade mark because they no longer have permission to use it. We plan on creating a new homepage at welcome.asp which would be seoed as the site homepage for both branded and non branded terms. However we need to get the trademark issue out the way asap
-
Typically, for a regular NOINDEX situation, you wouldn't want to use Robots.txt (you're right, it could prevent the page-level signal), but in this extreme of a situation and to really get the GWT signal to work, you may need the Robots.txt directive in place.
I'm confused, though, they want the home-page out of Google but NOT the rest of the site? By blocking the home-page, they'll kill the link-juice to other pages, and do massive SEO damage. I have to think there's another alternative.
For example, could they canonical the home-page to another, Google-safe page (let users see the original but send SERPs elsewhere)? Another alternative would be to move the current home-page content to a deeper page, 302-redirect to that page for visitors, and leave Google on the Google-safe home-page.
My gut reaction is that this sounds like a very dangerous maneuver, but it's really tough to say without understanding the logic behind it.
-
The best way to do this would be at page level. For the pages you don't want indexed, add
This will tell the search engines not to index that page, but to follow and index the other pages.
But I do have to say, I have never heard of anyone trying to not index the home page. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
-
Thanks for the reply.
You're correct that they still want the homepage working but not indexed. They wish for sections to remain indexed. I will try the robots idea but it I block the site there would it still crawl the page to pick up the no index tag?
-
Just the home-page, or the entire site? GWT is usually the fastest and most reliable way. I'd block the entire site in Robots.txt, too - sometimes, Google wants to see that prior to a GWT removal (although, usually, NOINDEX Is enough).
I assume they still want the page active for visitors (and just want it off of Google)?
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
-
Homepage was removed from google and got deranked
Hello experts I have a problem. The main page of my homepage got deranked severely and now I am not sure how to get the rank back. It started when I accidentally canonicalized the main page "https://kv16.dk" to a page that did not exist. 4 months later the page got deranked, and you were not able to see the "main page" in the search results at all, not even when searching for "kv16.dk". Then we discovered the canonicalization mistake and fixed it, and were able to get the main page back in the search results when searching for "kv16.dk". At first after we made the correction, some weeks passed by, and the ranking didn't get better. Google search console recommended uploading a sitemap, do we did that. However in this sitemap there was a lot of "thin content sites", for all the wordpress attachments. E.g. for every image in an article. more exactly there were 91 of these attachment sites, and the rest of the page consists of only two pages "main page" and an extra landing page. After that google begun recommending the attachment urls in some searches. We tried fixing it by redirecting all the attachments to their simple form. E.g. if it was an attachment page for an image we redirected strait to the image. Google has not yet removed these attachment pages, so the question is if you think it will help to remove the attachments via google search console, or will that not help at all? For example when we search "kv16" an attachment URL named "birksø" is one of the first results
Technical SEO | | Christian_T0 -
My Google Author Pic Disappeared
My Google author picture, which had been in place for a couple of years, disappeared from all SERP results recently. I checked, and rel=author attribution is valid on every post, as is the link to to the Google + authorship page (which contains a link back to the web site). When I test URL's in the structured data testing tool the picture appears. I'm out of troubleshooting ideas. Any suggestions welcome.
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Google Sitelinks
Hello, Good afternoon. I am having a site issue with Sitelinks. For some reason when I search Google for the brand I represent "California Olive Ranch" Sitelinks are not being generated. When I search for "Cal Olive Ranch" our site links are being generated. Our domain is Californiaoliveranch.com. Is there a way to tell Google to to change the site links to match our domain and brand name? Is this something that can be done in Google Webmasters? Thank you very much for your help. Adam P
Technical SEO | | apost40 -
Why has Google stopped indexing my content?
Mystery of the day! Back on December 28th, there was a 404 on the sitemap for my website. This lasted 2 days before I noticed and fixed. Since then, Google has not indexed my content. However, the majority of content prior to that date still shows up in the index. The website is http://www.indieshuffle.com/. Clues: Google reports no current issues in Webmaster tools Two reconsideration requests have returned "no manual action taken" When new posts are detected as "submitted" in the sitemap, they take 2-3 days to "index" Once "indexed," they cannot be found in search results unless I include url:indieshuffle.com The sitelinks that used to pop up under a basic search for "Indie Shuffle" are now gone I am using Yoast's SEO tool for Wordpress (and have been for years) Before December 28th, I was doing 90k impressions / 4.5k clicks After December 28th, I'm now doing 8k impressions / 1.3k clicks Ultimately, I'm at a loss for a possible explanation. Running an SEOMoz audit comes up with warnings about rel=canonical and a few broken links (which I've fixed in reaction to the report). I know these things often correct themselves, but two months have passed now, and it continues to get progressively worse. Thanks, Jason
Technical SEO | | indieshuffle0 -
Removing links from another site
Hello, Some site that I have never been able to access as it is always down has over 3,000 links to my website. They disappeared the other week and our search queries dramatically improved but now they are back again in Google Webmaster and we have dropped again.I have contacted the site owner and got no response and I have also put in a removal form (though I am not sure this fits for that) and asked Google to remove as they have been duplicating our content also. It was in my pending section but has now disappeared.This links are really damaging our search and the site isnt even there. Do I have to list all 3,000 links in the link removal to Google or is there another way I can go about telling them the issue.Appreciate any help on this
Technical SEO | | luwhosjack0 -
Removing irrelevant items from Google News?
A client wants to know if it's possible to get Google to remove stories from Google News feeds if those stories have nothing to do with the client? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JamesAMartin0 -
Duplicate Homepage In Google
Hi Just found through my SEO dashboard, Google has two versions of the same homepage, the root page, plus the index.html page, causing duplicate content from both the pages. what is the best option to ensure google only have 1 version of the homepage listed?
Technical SEO | | rfksolutionsltd0 -
My site cannot be found by google at all
I don't know why but our company site can not be found by google at all. I have submitted to google webmaster, have social media point to, etc, Is there any reason for this? url for our website is www.bistosamerica.com Thank you
Technical SEO | | BistosAmerica0