I want to take down some pages, how do I inform google?
-
Hey Guys,
I'm hoping someone can help - I'm in the midst of a site re-design - whilst one of our biggest reasons for the redesign was to create more space to write valuable content and unique content I have been reading other posts on moz about content auditing. I have come across a few articles in my own blog that are from 250 - 300 words to which the articles seem similar and the traffic is low.
I'm wondering while I'm left to consolidate these articles and create a fresh article for each entry that is more in-depth, when I consolidate or delete these pages - do I need to inform google these pages have now been deleted? If so using Wordpress what is the best way to do this?
Cheers and would appreciate some advise
Thanks
-
Genius! Thanks alot Dirk! Always helpful!!!!
-
Hi Justin,
The easiest way is just to take the pages off line - they will give a 404 status & after a while they will disappear from the index.
If you are regrouping the content into a new article - it's probably better to redirect these pages to the new one, using a 301 redirect. Here's an how-to: http://www.howto301redirect.com/wordpress-page-301-redirect/ (using a plugin). You could also manage the redirect directly in htaccess - see example here: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/proper-301-redirect-in-htaccess (you can manage the htaccess via the Yoast plugin).
rgds,
Dirk
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
-
Google Analytics: Okay to change domain?
So, we are a long time user of GA and we're planning a domain change.
Reporting & Analytics | | jmueller0823
Does anyone know if I can 'change the domain' in GA so we don't lose our past data?
Thanks!0 -
Is it possible to use Google Tag Manager to pass a user’s text input into a form field to Google analytics?
Hey Everyone, I finally figured out how to use auto event tracking with Google Tag Manager, but didn't get the data I wanted. I want to see what users are typing into the search field on my site (the URL structure of my site isn't set up properly to use GA's built-in site search tracking). So, I set up the form submit event tracking in Google Tag Manager and used the following as my event tracking parameters: Category: Search Action: Search Value When I test and look in Google Analytics I just see: "search" and "search value." I wanted to see the text that I searched on my site. Not just the Action and Category of the event.... Is what I'm trying to do even possible? Do I need to set up a different event tracking parameter? Thanks everyone!
Reporting & Analytics | | DaveGuyMan0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0 -
How to filter pages in Analytics by multiple criteria
Hello, we have several pages with the same page title. Now out of all those pages I want to pick two. Let's call them "/page1" and "/page2". For those pages I want the following information (combined for both): Avg. time on page, Bounce rate, Navigation Summary Normally I get all the information under "Content" "Pages" and by choosing the "page title" as primary dimension and clicking on the respective page title. Let's call it "page | title". Choosing the filter for 1 page works fine (I just enter "/page1" in simple filter). But how can I filter for two pages ( entering " include page ends with /page1 and include page ends with /page2" in the advance filter will show 0 results). Thanks in advance
Reporting & Analytics | | guitarslinger0 -
Regular Expressions in Google Analytics
I want to use the Google Analytics landing page reports to look at the bounce rate of top level pages excluding the homepage. So pages with urls: www.example.com/example Does anyone know a regular expression that will allow me to do this? Just to clarify I do not want to look at the bounce rate of the homepage or any pages deeper than www.example.com/example e.g: www.example.com/example/example www.example.com/example/example/example etc Thanks in advance
Reporting & Analytics | | CPLDistribution0 -
Google analytics - help
Hello, What is meant by campaign expiration in Google analytics ? The default value is 6 months. what does it mean ?
Reporting & Analytics | | seoug_20050 -
Google Docs Paranoia
Recently, there has been a lot of great information on SEOmoz about using Google Apps, Docs, etc. However, I suffer from Google paranoia (the fear that Google can see what's going on in my Google products). Is this fear unreasonable? Should I be concerned about using Google Apps, docs, analytics, etc. for SEO data (including keyword position tracking, back link analysis, etc)?
Reporting & Analytics | | Gyi0 -
Search within search? Weird google URLs
Good morning afternoon, how are you guys doing today? I'm experiencing a few Panda issues I'm trying to fix, and I was hoping I could get some help here about one of my problems. I used Google analytics to extract pages people land on after a Google search. I'm trying to identify thin pages that potentially harm my website as a whole. It turns out I have a bunch of pages in the likes of the following: /search?cd=15&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google .co.uk, and so on for a bunch of countries (.fi, .com, .sg, .pk, and so on, maybe 50 of them) My question is: what are those pages? their stats are awful, usually 1 visitor, 100% bounce rate, and 0 links. Do you think they can explain my dramatic drop in traffic following Panda? If so, what should I do with them? NOINDEX? Deletion? What would you suggest? I also have a lot of links in the likes of the following: /google-search?cx=partner-pub-6553421918056260:armz8yts3ql&cof=FORID:10&ie=ISO-8859-1&sa=Search&siteurl=www.mysite.com/content/article They lead to custom search pages. What should I do with them? Almost two weeks ago, Dr. Pete posted an article untitled Fat Panda and Thin Content in which he deals with "search within search" and how they might be targeted by Panda. Do you think this is the issue I'm facing? Any suggestion/help would be much appreciated! Thanks a lot and have a great day 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Ericc220