Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
To NoFollow or to NoIndex internal links
-
I all, I have recently taken over a fairly large e-commerce site that I am trying to "fix" and have come across something that I need a second opinion on.
A Semrush audit has revealed that there are a heck of a lot of internal nofollow links (over 90 000) that point to predominantly 4 pages from the Header of each page in the site, these are change currency pages to show clients different currencies and a members login page. The pages are:
/?action=changecurrency¤cy=EUR
/?action=changecurrency¤cy=USD
/?action=changecurrency¤cy=GBP
/members/
My opinion is that these pages should just be no index pages and they should be followed. instead of being indexed and no followed?
Any thoughts on this out there?
-
Glad to help!
-
You're awesome! Thanks a million
-
Yea, I wouldn't worry too much about those. You should however, specify the purpose of those parameters in Google Search Console - it'll help Google better understand their function. Here's a good guide on how to do that: http://www.shoutmeloud.com/google-webmaster-tool-added-url-parameter-option-seo.html
-
Thats a great help thanks Logan... Yes the Members area is account-level so I will de-index that. With regards to the other Currency thing, should I just ignore those "Error Warnings" then?
Cheers
-
Hi,
I wouldn't recommend the noindex approach here. Three of your four URLs are parameter'd versions of the homepage; meta tags are applied at the page level, not by parameters. This means your noindex tag would apply to the homepage - no good!! You could put a nofollow attribute on the links that point to those parameter URLs, but don't expect it to have a huge impact on your SEO efforts. Your /members/ folder might be worth de-indexing via a noindex tag, depends on what is contained in that folder. It sounds like it's probably account-level pages, if that's the case, you can and should keep those pages out of the index.
Hope that's helpful!
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
-
NoIndex or Rel=Canonical Pagination
Hello, I had a question about noindex and Rel=Canonical on category page pagination. On my site, the category page the meta="robots" has "Index,Follow" tags and the rel="canonical" is the main category page, but when a user sorts the page the meta="robots" changes to "NoIndex, Follow." My question is should the sorted page be name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW" /> since the rel="canonical" is pointing to the main page?? Or does it matter that it is NoIndex?? Any thoughts on this topic would be awesome. Thanks. Main Category Page
On-Page Optimization | | chuck-layton
https://www.site.com/category/
name="robots" content="INDEX,FOLLOW" />
rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com/category/"/> Name Sorted Page
https://www.site.com/category/?dir=asc&order=name
name="robots" content="NOINDEX, FOLLOW" />
rel="canonical" href="https://www.site.com/category/">0 -
Do Search Engines Try To Follow Phone Number Links
Any SEO thoughts on using rel="nofollow" when inserting a link to a phone number? To make a phone number click to call we use (555) 555-1234 Wondering if search engines are trying to follow that link or if this is standard and not to worry. Any thoughts on if I should add rel="nofollow" to these or does it not matter? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Lions-Pro0 -
NOINDEX, FOLLOW on product page - how about images indexing?
Hi, Since we have a lot of similar products with duplicate descriptions, I decided to NOINDEX, FOLLOW most of these different variants which have duplicate content. However, I guess it would be useful in marketing terms if Google image search still listed the images of the products in image search. How does the image search of Google actually work - does it read the NOINDEX on the product page and therefore skip the image also or is the image search completely dependent on the ALT tag of any image found on our site? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | speedbird12290 -
Removing navigation menu items/links on homepage
We are redesigning our website after a long stint with an SEO firm who also handled our design/dev. We want to clean up the links on our homepage but don't want to screw up our IA or SEO. We want to delete some navbar menu items and a whole bunch on random links to our evergreen content below the fold. Would we need to reposition those navbar items/content links to our footer or somewhere else on the homepage to maintain our internal linking structure? It would be great if you could take a look at our site and give us any suggestions or advice on the best way to go about this. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Lorne_Marr1 -
Alt text / internal linking
Hi everyone A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about. The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text. There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in. What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking? Thanks guys.
On-Page Optimization | | HireSpace0 -
Wordpress category links not working
Hi All of sudden, my category links are not working. Any tips on figuring out what's causing this? Looks like permalink problem with newer wordpress version. I turned off all the plugins see if this cause any problems. Still not being able to find any option. Here's my site http://www.hibebefetaldoppler.com/fetal-doppler-questions-and-answers/ Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | BistosAmerica0 -
Mega Menus? A good or bad idea for link juice.
Hi Just wondering what people think of using mega menus for navigation? We have used them on our new site http://nicontrols.com/uk/ When I run the site through the excellent SEOMoz campaign tools I see that we have too many on page links. I now believe the menu is good for customers but maybe not for link juice. Anyone got an ideas? Do I remove the mega menu or just reduce the number of links? Many thanks David
On-Page Optimization | | DavidLenehan0 -
My nofollow link is showing as a 302\. Is this OK?
My nofollow link is showing as a 302. Is this OK? Not looking to pass any juice along but don't want to be penalized either. Thanks Buhrly
On-Page Optimization | | Buhrly0