Removing indexed pages
-
Hi all, this is my first post so be kind - I have a one page Wordpress site that has the Yoast plugin installed. Unfortunately, when I first submitted the site's XML sitemap to the Google Search Console, I didn't check the Yoast settings and it submitted some example files from a theme demo I was using. These got indexed, which is a pain, so now I am trying to remove them. Originally I did a bunch of 301's but that didn't remove them from (at least not after about a month) - so now I have set up 410's - These also seem to not be working and I am wondering if it is because I re-submitted the sitemap with only the index page on it (as it is just a single page site) could that have now stopped Google indexing the original pages to actually see the 410's?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -
Thanks for all the responses!
At the moment I am serving the 410's using the .htaaccess file as I removed the actual pages a while ago. The pages don't show in most searches, however, two of them do show up in some instances under the sitelinks which is the main pain. I manually asked for them to be removed using 'remove urls' however that only last a couple of months and they are now back.
So I guess the best way is to recreate the pages and insert a noindex?
Thanks again for everyone time, it's much appreciated.
-
I agree with ViviCa1's methods, so go with that.
One thing I just wanted to bring up though, is that unless people are actually visiting those pages you don't want indexed, or it does some type of brand damage, then you don't really need to make it a priority.
Just because they're indexed doesn't mean they're showing up for any searches - and most likely they aren't - so people will realistically never see them. And if you only have a one-page site, you're not wasting much crawl budget on those.
I just bring this up since sometimes we (I'm guilty of it too) can get bogged down by small distractions in SEO that don't really help much, when we should be creating and producing new things!
"These also seem to not be working and I am wondering if it is because I re-submitted the sitemap with only the index page on it (as it is just a single page site) could that have now stopped Google indexing the original pages to actually see the 410's?"
There was a good related response from Google employee Susan Moskwa:
“The best way to stop Googlebot from crawling URLs that it has discovered in the past is to make those URLs (such as your old Sitemaps) 404. After seeing that a URL repeatedly 404s, we stop crawling it. And after we stop crawling a Sitemap, it should drop out of your "All Sitemaps" tab.”
A bit older, but shows how Google discovers URLs through the sitemap. Take a look at the rest of that thread as well.
-
I'd suggest adding a noindex robots meta tag to the affected pages (see how to do this here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en) and until Google recrawls use the remove URLs tool (see how to use this here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663419?hl=en).
If you use the noindex robots meta tag, don't disallow the pages through your robots.txt or Google won't even see the tag. Disallowing Google from crawling a page doesn't mean it won't be indexed (or removed from the index), it just means Google won't crawl the page.
-
Couple of ideas spring to mind
- Use the robots.txt file
- Demote the site link in Google search console (see https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/47334)
Example of robots.txt file...
Disallow: /the-link/you-dont/want-to-show.html
Disallow: /the-link/you-dont/want-to-show2.htmlDon't include the domain just the link to the page, Plenty of tutorials out there worthwhile having a look at http://www.robotstxt.org
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
-
Large Drop in Indexed Pages But Increase in Traffic
We run a directory site and noticed about a week ago that Google Webmaster Tools was reporting a huge drop in indexed pages (from around 150,000 down to 30,000). In the same time, however, our traffic has increased. Has anyone seen this before or have any ideas on why this could happen? I have search for technical errors but nothing has changed on our site or our content.
Technical SEO | | sa_787040 -
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 -
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 -
Skip indexing the search pages
Hi, I want all such search pages skipped from indexing www.somesite.com/search/node/ So i have this in robots.txt (Disallow: /search/) Now any posts that start with search are being blocked and in Google i see this message A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more. How can i handle this and also how can i find all URL's that Google is blocking from showing Thanks
Technical SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Correct linking to the /index of a site and subfolders: what's the best practice? link to: domain.com/ or domain.com/index.html ?
Dear all, starting with my .htaccess file: RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | inlinear
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.inlinear.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://inlinear.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^./index.html
RewriteRule ^(.)index.html$ http://inlinear.com/ [R=301,L] 1. I redirect all URL-requests with www. to the non www-version...
2. all requests with "index.html" will be redirected to "domain.com/" My questions are: A) When linking from a page to my frontpage (home) the best practice is?: "http://domain.com/" the best and NOT: "http://domain.com/index.php" B) When linking to the index of a subfolder "http://domain.com/products/index.php" I should link also to: "http://domain.com/products/" and not put also the index.php..., right? C) When I define the canonical ULR, should I also define it just: "http://domain.com/products/" or in this case I should link to the definite file: "http://domain.com/products**/index.php**" Is A) B) the best practice? and C) ? Thanks for all replies! 🙂
Holger0 -
Will rel=canonical cause a page to be indexed?
Say I have 2 pages with duplicate content: One of them is: http://www.originalsite.com/originalpage This page is the one I want to be indexed on google (domain rank already built, etc.) http://www.originalpage.com is more of an ease of use domain, primarily for printed material. If both of these sites are identical, will rel=canonical pointing to "http://www.originalsite.com/originalpage" cause it to be indexed? I do not plan on having any links on my site going to "http://www.originalsite.com/originalpage", they would instead go to "http://www.originalpage.com".
Technical SEO | | jgower0 -
SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostic indicates duplicate page content for home page?
My first SEOMoz Crawl Diagnostic report for my website indicates duplicate page content for my home page. It lists the home page URL Page Title and URL twice. How do I go about diagnosing this? Is the problem related to the following code that is in my .htaccess file? (The purpose of the code was to redirect any non "www" backlink referrals to the "www" version of the domain.) RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^whatever.com [NC]
Technical SEO | | Linesides
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.whatever.com/$1 [L,R=301] Should I get rid of the "http" reference in the second line? Related to this is a notice in the "Crawl Notices Found" -- "301 Permanent redirect" which shows my home page title as "http://whatever.com" and shows the redirect address as http://http://www.whatever.com/ I'm guessing this problem is again related to the redirect code I'm using. Also... The report indicates duplicate content for those links that have different parameters added to the URL i.e. http://www.whatever.com?marker=Blah Blah&markerzoom=13 If I set up a canonical reference for the page, will this fix this? Thank you.0 -
If a page isn't linked to or directly sumitted to a search engine can it get indexed?
Hey Guys, I'm curious if there are ways a page can get indexed even if the page isn't linked to or hasn't been submitted to a search engine. To my knowledge the following page on our website is not linked to and we definitely didn't submit it to Google - but it's currently indexed: <cite>takelessons.com/admin.php/adminJobPosition/corp</cite> Anyone have any ideas as to why or how this could have happened? Hopefully I'm missing something obvious 🙂 Thanks, Jon
Technical SEO | | TakeLessons0