How to Remove Old Comment Page Query String URLs
-
I used to use a comments program on my website that created comment pages in the form of http://www.example.com/web-page.htm?comm_page=2. When I switched to a new comments program, I worried that these old comment URLs would be considered duplicate content. I created a 301 redirect that, for example, would redirect http://www.example.com/web-page.htm?comm_page=2 to http://www.example.com/web-page.htm and disallowed them in robots.txt, which I later learned was not the thing to do.. I have removed the URLs from being disallowed in robots.txt. However, many months later, these comment page URLs keep appearing in Google's index from time to time. I use the "Remove URLs" tool in Google Webmaster Tools to remove the URLs from Google's index, but more URLs appear a few days later. How can I get rid of these URLs for good?
Thanks!
-
If you have still left the redirects in place; these should work. As they would indicate that the 'old' page redirects to the page without comments. I would also suggest adding a canonical link to all your pages. So in case you missed a redirect or you have disabled them it would tell Google that the page it is visiting is exactly the same as the one in the canonical link.
Change will not happen overnight; it will take some time; especially if you had a robots blocking Google from doing to that url, as it would have to first identify the url to be 'crawlable' then find the redirect or canonical, after that update the serps & indexes.
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
-
Customer Reviews on Product Page / Pagination / Crawl 3 review pages only
Hi experts, I present customer feedback, reviews basically, on my website for the products that are sold. And with this comes the ability to read reviews and obviously with pagination to display the available reviews. Now I want users to be able to flick through and read the reviews to help them satisfy whatever curiosity they have. My only thinking is that the page that contains the reviews, with each click of the pagination will present roughly the same content. The only thing that changes is the title tags which will contain the number in the H1 to display the page number. I'm thinking this could be duplication but i have yet to be notified by Google in my Search console... Should i block crawlers from crawling beyond page 3 of reviews? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Train4Academy.co.uk0 -
New site: More pages for usability, or fewer more detailed pages for greater domain authority flow?
Ladies and gents! We're building a new site. We have a list of 28 professions, and we're wondering whether or not to include them all on one long and detailed page, or to keep them on their own separate pages. Thinking about the flow of domain authority - I could see 28 pages diluting it quite heavily - but at the same time, I think having the separate pages would be better for the user. What do you think?
Technical SEO | | Muhammad-Isap1 -
Are image pages considered 'thin' content pages?
I am currently doing a site audit. The total number of pages on the website are around 400... 187 of them are image pages and coming up as 'zero' word count in Screaming Frog report. I needed to know if they will be considered 'thin' content by search engines? Should I include them as an issue? An answer would be most appreciated.
Technical SEO | | MTalhaImtiaz0 -
Why does my 301 show the old urls with new descriptions and titles?
Hi all, We've just rebranded. The 301 appears to have worked well and moved the results and rankings onto the new domain. However a site:olddomain.com search in Google brings up about a hundred pages that have the new titles and descriptions but show the old urls - does anyone have any idea how to make the old domain disappear from the SERPS? Many thanks, Richard
Technical SEO | | panini0 -
Redirect Without Passing Old Page Properties
Is there a way to redirect one page to another, e.g. test.com/ to test.com/home, without passing link juice or any other associated properties of the latter to the former?
Technical SEO | | NTGproducts0 -
Landing Page URL Structure
We are finally setting up landing pages to support our PPC campaigns. There has been some debate internally about the URL structure. Originally we were planning on URL's like: domain.com /california /florida /ny I would prefer to have the URL's for each state inside a "state" folder like: domain.com /state /california /florida /ny I like having the folders and pages for each state under a parent folder to keep the root folder as clean as possible. Having a folder or file for each state in the root will be very messy. Before you scream URL rewriting :-). Our current site is still running under Classic ASP which doesn't support URL rewriting. We have tried to use HeliconTech's ISAPI rewrite module for IIS but had to remove it because of too many configuration issues. Next year when our coding to MVC is complete we will use URL rewriting. So the question for now: Is there any advantage or disadvantage to one URL structure over the other?
Technical SEO | | briankb0 -
What's the best format for a e-commerce URL product page
We have over 2000 non branded experiences and activities sold through our website. The website is having a face lift with the a new look and a stronger focus on SEO. As part of this, I am keen to establish what the best practice is for product based URLs. I've researched the market and come up with a few alternatives that are used: domain/category/subcategory/activity_name domain/activity_name/category/subcategory/activity_reference domain/generic_term/activity_reference/activity_name domain/category/activity_location/activity_name Activities are location based but the location can change (say once every 2 years). Activity names, category, subcategory and activity_reference rarely change. Are there any thoughts/ research on the best method? (If there is one) Many thanks in advance for your insights.
Technical SEO | | philwill0