How can I tell Google not to index a portion of a webpage?
-
I'm working with an ecommerce site that has many product descriptions for various brands that are important to have but are all straight duplicates. I'm looking for some type of tag tht can be implemented to prevent Google from seeing these as duplicates while still allowing the page to rank in the index. I thought I had found it with Googleoff, googleon tag but it appears that this is only used with the google appliance hardware.
-
Correct you should make sure is not used elsewhere.
But I can't refrain from stressing again to hide the content is unlikely the best strategy.
-
So what should it look like in the code?
If my area to block was a product description it might say
"Product Description
bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla"
Secondly, in the robots.txt if I disallow /iframes/ then I would need to make sure we are not using iframes anywhere else?
-
Just as Chris Painter pointed out, you shouldn't worry too much about duplicate content if your site is legit (not an autoblog for example) and if you really want hide it from google, iframes are the way to go.
-
Matt Cutts has said (source:http://youtu.be/Vi-wkEeOKxM ) not to worry too much about duplicate content especially with the sheer volume of it there is on the internet. You may find you're looking more like you are trying to cheat Google or similar which could cause you a bigger head ache not to mention you may slow your webapge down, duplicate content isn't the worse enemy for seo. If you are worried put all the effort of trying to hide stuff from Google into making the product description unique.
-
Hello Brad,
Just to get your question clear.
I'm I correct that you want a method that does let Google (and other search engines) know a portion of your pages are duplicates while you want both duplicated pages and original pages to rank in the SERP's?
If you could provide us with an example (link) that would help a great deal as well.
-
Hi Brad,
You can prevent Google from seeing portions of the page by putting those portions in iframes that are blocked by
robots.txt.
Disallow: /iframes/
Thanks
-
You can iframe those chunks of content and block with robots.txt or just meta tagging noindex in the iframe source.
But I would not, if you can't build a plan to make the content unique just canonicalize, or let google choose which page to pick among the duplicate bunch.
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
-
Pages not indexable?
Hello, I've been trying to find out why Google Search Console finds these pages non-indexable: https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/eat-drink.html https://www.visitflorida.com/en-us/florida-beaches/beach-finder.html Moz and SEMrush both crawl the pages and show no errors but GSC comes back with, "blocked by robots.txt" but I've confirmed it is not. Anyone have any thoughts? 6AYn1TL
Technical SEO | | KenSchaefer0 -
Google not index main keyword on homepage in 2 countries same language, rest of pages no problem
Hello, Two the same websites, two countries, same language http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl / http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.be The main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in top 10 of netherlands (steady position for 2 years) and in ** belgium** not in top 15****0 the main keyword "relatiegeschenken| but other keywords good positions, thats so strange I didn't understand and now every thing turned around suddenly: Now the main keyword "relatiegeschenken suddenly " not anymore in top 10 in the netherslandsits gone and other kewyords still good positions , now **main keyword suddenly in top 10 of belgium 2 years was not **other pages still ok. It are exactly the same websites and the same language. So double content But my programmer told me in google webmaster tools settings are right, so no problem with double content ? I really dont understand first main keyword in netherland in top 10 and in belgium not, now changed, now in belgium top 10 and not findable in the netherland on the main keyword. Maybe problem in code ? Maybe problems in code because websites are identical and active in two different countries wit same language ? No message about a penalty message in WMT, no spam links week i delete two strong but according to Linkdetox a bad links. I can not find a solution but its really important keyword that my customer want back in top 10 in netherland, like it was. All other positions and visitors are the same. Befor i have had this with belgium site, also main keyword google not index homepage. But suddenly no google show in belgium in top 10 Its turned around Kind regards, Marcel
Technical SEO | | Bossie720 -
Sitemap indexation
3 days ago I sent in a new sitemap for a new platform. Its 23.412 pages but until now its only 4 pages (!!) that are indexed according to the Webmaster Tools. Why so few? Our stage-enviroment got indexed (more than 50K pages) in a few days by a mistake.
Technical SEO | | Morten_Hjort0 -
Can someone that had (or seen) a Manual Action in WMTs tell me.....
This is a repost of this question http://moz.com/community/q/manual-action-found-in-wmts-no-email-no-message-in-wmts But I'm sure there is someone in the moz fourms that have had/seen manual action 🙂 Someone I know said that they were looking though their WMTs and under Manual Actions they found they had a partial penalty. There is no date against it and they never got an email and there are no messages WMTs for it. I haven't personally dealt with a Manual penalty before, but I would have expected there to be a message in WMTs for it ( an email might have been missed because of a spam filter etc). Could it be a very old penalty?
Technical SEO | | PaddyDisplays0 -
Removing a staging area/dev area thats been indexed via GWT (since wasnt hidden) from the index
Hi, If you set up a brand new GWT account for a subdomain, where the dev area is located (separate from the main GWT account for the main live site) and remove all pages via the remove tool (by leaving the page field blank) will this definately not risk hurting/removing the main site (since the new subdomain specific gwt account doesn't apply to the main site in any way) ?? I have a new client who's dev area has been indexed, dev team has now prevented crawling of this subdomain but the 'the stable door was shut after the horse had already bolted' and the subdomains pages are on G's index so we need to remove the entire subdomain development area asap. So we are going to do this via the remove tool in a subdomain specific new gwt account, but I just want to triple check this wont accidentally get main site removed too ?? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Best way to fix a whole bunch of 500 server errors that Google has indexed?
I got a notification from Google Webmaster tools saying that they've found a whole bunch of server errors. It looks like it is because an earlier version of the site I'm doing some work for had those URLs, but the new site does not. In any case, there are now thousands of these pages in their index that error out. If I wanted to simply remove them all from the index, which is my best option: Disallow all 1,000 or so pages in the robots.txt ? Put the meta noindex in the headers of each of those pages ? Rel canonical to a relevant page ? Redirect to a relevant page ? Wait for Google to just figure it out and remove them naturally ? Submit each URL to the GWT removal tool ? Something else ? Thanks a lot for the help...
Technical SEO | | jim_shook0 -
Google indexing tags help
Hey everyone, So yesterday someone pointed out to me that Google is indexing tags and that will likely hurt search engine results. I just did a "site:thetechblock.com" and I notice that tags are still being pulled. http://d.pr/i/WmE6 Today, I went into my Yoast settings and checked "noindex,follow" tags in the Taxomomies settings. I just want to make sure what I'm doing is right. http://d.pr/i/zmbd Thanks guys
Technical SEO | | ttb0 -
What can i do to let google know we are a lifestyle magazine
Hi my site http://www.in2town.co.uk/ is a lifestyle magazine and before we changed templates and changed the joomla language from 1.0 to 1.5 our lifestyle magazine was getting around 10,000 visitors a day and we were number one in google for the search term lifestyle magazine. In the past few months we have been number five for the search term lifestyle magazine and now since yesterday we have dropped to ten. I have a serious problem that being a online lifestyle magazine i do not have the luxury to have lots of text telling people it is a lifestyle magazine and google. What i mean is, if this was a website about benidorm then you would have an introduction about benidorm so google would understand what the site is about. What i would like help on, is to get back to the top and know where i can put a nice introduction which does not look out of place and what i can do to get back to the top under the search term lifestyle magazine. any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860