Old URLs Appearing in SERPs
-
Thirteen months ago we removed a large number of non-corporate URLs from our web server. We created 301 redirects and in some cases, we simply removed the content as there was no place to redirect to.
Unfortunately, all these pages still appear in Google's SERPs (not Bings) for both the 301'd pages and the pages we removed without redirecting. When you click on the pages in the SERPs that have been redirected - you do get redirected - so we have ruled out any problems with the 301s.
We have already resubmitted our XML sitemap and when we run a crawl using Screaming Frog we do not see any of these old pages being linked to at our domain.
We have a few different approaches we're considering to get Google to remove these pages from the SERPs and would welcome your input.
- Remove the 301 redirect entirely so that visits to those pages return a 404 (much easier) or a 410 (would require some setup/configuration via Wordpress). This of course means that anyone visiting those URLs won't be forwarded along, but Google may not drop those redirects from the SERPs otherwise.
- Request that Google temporarily block those pages (done via GWMT), which lasts for 90 days.
- Update robots.txt to block access to the redirecting directories.
Thank you.
Rosemary
One year ago I removed a whole lot of junk that was on my web server but it is still appearing in the SERPs.
-
You're right - I'm worrying about something that isn't yet a problem.
Thank you
-
In my experience, the best way to absolutely get rid of them is to use the 410 permanently gone status code, then resubmit them for indexation (possibly via an XML sitemap submission, and you can also use Google's crawl testing tool in Search Console to double-check). That said, even with 410, Google can take their time.
The other option is to recreate 200 pages there and use the meta robots noindex tag on the page to specifically exclude them. The temporary block in Google Search Console can work, too, but, it's temporary and I can't say whether it will actually extend the time that the redirected pages appear in the index via the site: command.
All that said, if the pages only show via a site: command, there's almost no chance anyone will see them
-
Ok, Rand - one last questions.
I do think one year is a long time to have old results and if I was going to do a test to get Google to stop showing them in their SERPs what would you do? --- Let's say a client asked you to have these URLs disappear
The 79 pages that appear in the /eichler/ directory are from a personal site so I don't care what happens with those pages in the SERPs.
My ideas are:
-
Remove the 301 redirect entirely so that visits to those pages return a 404 (much easier) or a 410 (would require some setup/configuration via Wordpress). This of course means that anyone visiting those URLs won't be forwarded along, but Google may not drop those redirects from the SERPs otherwise.
-
Request that Google temporarily block those pages (done via GWMT), which lasts for 90 days.
-
Update robots.txt to block access to the redirecting directories.
-
Remove the 301 redirect entirely so that visits to those pages return a 404 (much easier) or a 410 (would require some setup/configuration via Wordpress). This of course means that anyone visiting those URLs won't be forwarded along, but Google may not drop those redirects from the SERPs otherwise.
-
Request that Google temporarily block those pages (done via GWMT), which lasts for 90 days.
-
Update robots.txt to block access to the redirecting directories.
-
-
14 months! Wow. That is a long time indeed. Although, now that I look, Moz redirected OpenSiteExplorer just about a year ago, and we still have URLs showing for the site: command in Google too (https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aopensiteexplorer.org) so I suppose it's not that uncommon.
Glad to hear traffic and rankings are solid. Let us know if we can help out in the future!
-
Thank you Rand. It has been 14 months since these pages were moved and I'd never seen Google retain pages anywhere near this long.
You're right of course, there has been no impact to traffic for our site as these pages weren't about our search business.
Thanks for taking a look at our issue.
Rosemary
-
Oh gosh - it's my pleasure! Thanks for being part of the Moz community I'm honored to help out.
As for the URLs - looks like everything's fine. Google often maintains old URLs in a searchable index form long after they've been 301'd, but for every query I tried, they're clearly pulling up the correct/new version of the page, so those redirects seem to be working just great. You're simply seeing the vestigal remnants of them still in Google (which isn't unusual - we had URLs from seomoz.org findable via site: queries for many months after moving to Moz, but the right, new pages were all ranking for normal queries and traffic wasn't being hurt).
Some examples:
- https://www.google.com/search?q=Enter+the+World+of+Eichler+Design
- https://www.google.com/search?q=Eichler+History+flashbacks
- https://www.google.com/search?q=eichler+resources+on+the+web+books
Unless you're also seeing a loss in search traffic/rankings, I wouldn't sweat it much. They'll disappear eventually from the site: query, too. It just takes a while.
-
Wow - do I ever feel privileged to have you respond! Thank you Rand.
You can see a batch of redirected URLs here < site:totheweb.com eichler >
I appreciate any suggestions.
Rosemary
-
Hi Rosemary - can you share some examples of the URLs and the queries that bring them up in search results? If so, we can likely do a diagnosis of what might be going on with Google and why the pages aren't correctly showing the redirected-to URLs.
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 Serps Not Showing HTTPS in Front of URL
Hi Everyone, We implemented the HTTPS change to our four websites about 6 months ago. I have found something that I feel is strange. The homepage of each website shows www.domain.com, but all the internal pages show https://www.domain.com/page. If you click through it shows it as secure, but I feel that because it is happening on all four websites, that something was done incorrectly. Here is one Google SERP: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&biw=1920&bih=947&ei=gq9GWpizBuuF_Qa_p5e4Bw&q=tanzanite+jewelry+designs&oq=tanzanite+jewelry+designs&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l2.130446.136028.0.136152.29.17.4.7.9.0.207.2214.7j9j1.17.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.28.2350...0i131k1j0i22i30k1.0.BA5-meGmuA0 As you can see, our site displays with no https, but all the internal pages do. It just worries me as I have seen our internal pages increasing in positioning, but not our homepage. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | vetofunk0 -
Old Redirected Domain is replacing my current domain on SERPs
Hello everyone, All of a sudden a 2 year old redirected domain is replacing my current domain for 2 weeks now, my site is apitus.com and my old domain is aptitus.pe (the redirect is still working), however this only happens on my country google results (google.com.pe), if you check my site on google.com, everything looks ok even with a sitelink, which I no longer have on my country search results. Back to the issue, the first thing I thought was go to Search Console and take it out from the index, so I asked for access by uploading a file but since everything on that old site redirects to my current site I can't make such action. While still waiting for such access, is there anything else I could do?. Thanks in advance. PD: I'm adding the images of my SERPs CmzN8kY G3zZwwj
Technical SEO | | JoaoCJ0 -
Canonical sitemap URL different to website URL architecture
Hi, This may or may not be be an issue, but would like some SEO advice from someone who has a deeper understanding. I'm currently working on a clients site that has a bespoke CMS built by another development agency. The website currently has a sitemap with one link - EG: www.example.com/category/page. This is obviously the page that is indexed in search engines. However the website structure uses www.example.com/page, this isn't indexed in search engines as the links are canonical. The client is also using the second URL structure in all it's off and online advertising, internal links and it's also been picked up by referral sites. I suspect this is not good practice... however I'd like to understand whether there are any negative SEO effectives from this structure? Does Google look at both pages with regard to visits, pageviews, bounce rate, etc. and combine the data OR just use the indexed version? www.example.com/category/page - 63.5% of total pageviews
Technical SEO | | MikeSutcliffe
www.example.com/page - 34.31% of total pageviews Thanks
Mike0 -
Horizontal Scroll in SERPs
Hello,
Technical SEO | | Koki.Mourao
I would love to find out how this is implemented. I do not know this function's name but it basically is a horizontal scroll which loads on top of a SERP. What is it called? How can I implement this. Is it special tags? What? How? Any tips would be very helpful. Thanks qJMLCCF0 -
Redirect URLS with 301 twice
Hello, I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this. We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND. However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result. The problems I see are these unless he redirects again: The new simplified URLS have to start from scratch to rank 2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page. I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these: Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice? If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Block url with dynamic text in
I've just ran a report and I have a lot of duplicate page titles, most of which seem to be the review page, I use Magento and my normal url would be something like blah-blahtext.html but the review url is something like blah-blahtext/reviews/category/categoryname So I want to block the /reviews url bit as no one ever leaves reviews and it's not something I will be using in the future. Also I have a dynamic navigation which creates urls that look like product-name.html?size=2&colour=14 these are also creating duplicate urls, anyway to fix this? While I'm asking, anyone any tips for Magento?
Technical SEO | | Beermonster0 -
Redirected Subdomain Development URLs Showing In SERPs?
I develop client websites within a subdomain of another website (with noindex, nofollow so that incomplete websites on the wrong domains aren't ever seen by web users). Then, when we launch a client's site on their own domain, we redirect all of the development URLS to the appropriate page on the new live site. (meaning at site launch, all pages on http://client-site.developersite.com would be set to 301 redirect to identical pages pages on http://www.client-site.com). This system has always seemed to work fine, but today I discovered 94,700 pages indexed by Google on my root domain and found that these were mostly old URLs of sites in development that redirect to the actual client sites. Many are several years old. Any idea why Google would be indexing these pages? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | VTDesignWorks0 -
URL Length
What is the ideal length for an item's URL. Theirs a few different options. A) www.mydomain.com/item-name B) www.mydomain.com/category-name/product-name C) www.mydomain.com/category-name/sub-category-name/product-name Please choose A, B, or C and explain why you made that decision. Looking forward to the responses.
Technical SEO | | Romancing0