Does Google crawl the pages which are generated via the site's search box queries?
-
For example, if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled? I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site and hence am confused as to whether Google bots would be able to find it.
-
Google crawls the pages. Google sometimes even tries the search box by typing in a random word to see what happens.
Have a look at this url: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agoogle.com%20inurl%3A%22search%3Fq%22 You'll see that search queries have been indexed. It happens if people link to it. It doesn't matter that the url is "non existent". It actually is, because it doesn't display a 404 error or any other error. It gives a 200 OK code, so search engines see it as a normal page. Google will probably not index a page it "makes" by filling in a random search term, but will index such a page when it is linked to.
-
Google could crawl the dynamic URLs created by your searchbox - but it usually doesn't unless there is a link to such a dynamic url somewhere. Internal searches don't create much problems anymore, but if you want to be sure, you could always block your dynamic search results pages via robots.txt or Google Webmaster Tools (>Site configuration >URL parameters).
So if the URL generated by internal searches is http://www.site.com/search/?searchword=search+query+here, you could add this to robots.txt:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /search/
-
No I am not talking about the google search box incorporated in sites but the site's own search box. Answering your 2nd question, I meant that the URL won't be found via site navigation as it is a dynamic URL that is generated. Awaiting your response on the same.
-
"if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled?"
Is it google search-box for sites your talking about?" I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site"
**If it does'nt exist you wouldent find it? or do you mean that the page is not to find in the menu-navigation? **
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
-
How long will old pages stay in Google's cache index. We have a new site that is two months old but we are seeing old pages even though we used 301 redirects.
Two months ago we launched a new website (same domain) and implemented 301 re-directs for all of the pages. Two months later we are still seeing old pages in Google's cache index. So how long should I tell the client this should take for them all to be removed in search?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Liamis0 -
Print pages returning 404's
Print pages on one of our sister sites are returning 404's in our crawl but are visible when clicked on. Here is one example: https://www.theelementsofliving.com/recipe/citrus-energy-boosting-smoothie/print Any ideas as to why these are returning errors? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FirstService0 -
Google is indexing wrong page for search terms not on that page
I’m having a problem … the wrong page is indexing with Google, for search phrases “not on that page”. Explained … On a website I developed, I have four products. For example sake, we’ll say these four products are: Sneakers (search phrase: sneakers) Boots (search phrase: boots) Sandals (search phrase: sandals) High heels (search phrase: high heels) Error: What is going “wrong” is … When the search phrase “high heels” is indexed by Google, my “Sneakers” page is being indexed instead (and ranking very well, like #2). The page that SHOULD be indexing, is the “High heels” page (not the sneakers page – this is the wrong search phrase, and it’s not even on that product page – not in URL, not in H1 tags, not in title, not in page text – nowhere, except for in the top navigation link). Clue #1 … this same error is ALSO happening for my other search phrases, in exactly the same manner. i.e. … the search phrase “sandals” is ALSO resulting in my “Sneakers” page being indexed, by Google. Clue #2 … this error is NOT happening with Bing (the proper pages are correctly indexing with the proper search phrases, in Bing). Note 1: MOZ has given all my product pages an “A” ranking, for optimization. Note 2: This is a WordPress website. Note 3: I had recently migrated (3 months ago) most of this new website’s page content (but not the “Sneakers” page – this page is new) from an old, existing website (not mine), which had been indexing OK for these search phrases. Note 4: 301 redirects were used, for all of the OLD website pages, to the new website. I have tried everything I can think of to fix this, over a period of more than 30 days. Nothing has worked. I think the “clues” (it indexes properly in Bing) are useful, but I need help. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MG_Lomb_SEO0 -
Remove URLs that 301 Redirect from Google's Index
I'm working with a client who has 301 redirected thousands of URLs from their primary subdomain to a new subdomain (these are unimportant pages with regards to link equity). These URLs are still appearing in Google's results under the primary domain, rather than the new subdomain. This is problematic because it's creating an artificial index bloat issue. These URLs make up over 90% of the URLs indexed. My experience has been that URLs that have been 301 redirected are removed from the index over time and replaced by the new destination URL. But it has been several months, close to a year even, and they're still in the index. Any recommendations on how to speed up the process of removing the 301 redirected URLs from Google's index? Will Google, or any search engine for that matter, process a noindex meta tag if the URL's been redirected?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trung.ngo0 -
What's the best internal linking strategy for articles and on-site resources?
We recently added an education center to our site with articles and information about our products and industry. What is the best way to link to and from that content? There are two options I'm considering: Link to articles from category and subcategory pages under a section called "related articles" and link back to these category and subcategory pages from the articles: category page <<--------->> education center article education center article <<---------->> subcategory page Only link from the articles to the category and subcategory pages: education center article ---------->> category page education center article ---------->> subcategory page Would #1 dilute the SEO value of the category and subcategory pages? I want to offer shoppers links to more information if they need it, but this may also take them away from the products. Has anyone tested this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Wordpress.com content feeding into site's subdomain, who gets SEO credit?
I have a client who had created a Wordpress.com (not Wordpress.org) blog, and feeds blog posts into a subdomain blog.client-site.com. My understanding was that in terms of SEO, Wordpress.com would still get the credit for these posts, and not the client, but I'm seeing conflicting information. All of the posts are set with permalinks on the client's site, such as blog.client-site.com/name-of-post, and when I run a Google site:search query, all of those individual posts appear in the Google search listings for the client's domain. Also, I've run a marketing.grader.com report, and these same results are seen. Looking at the source code on the page, however, I see this information which leads me to believe the content is being credited to, and fed in from, Wordpress.com ('client name' altered for privacy): href="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg">class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-2050" title="Could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster" src="http://client-name.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/could_you_survive_a_computer_disaster.jpeg?w=150&h=143" I'm looking to provide a recommendation to the client on whether they are ok to continue moving forward with this current setup, or whether we should port the blog posts over to a subfolder on their primary domain www.client-site.com/blog and use Wordpress.org functionality, for proper SEO. Any advice?? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | grapevinemktg0 -
Is there any delay between crawling a page by google and displaying of the ratings in rich snippet of the results in google?
Is there any delay between crawling a page by google and displaying of the ratings in rich snippet of the results in google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NEWCRAFT0