How to noindex lots of content properly : bluntly or progressively ?
-
Hello Mozers !
I'm quite in doubt, so I thought why not ask for help ?
Here's my problem : I need to better up a website's SEO that consists in a lot (1 million+ pages) of poor content. Basically it's like a catalog, where you select a brand, a product series and then the product, to then fill out a form for a request (sorry for the cryptic description, I can't be more precise).
Beside the classic SEO work, a part of what (I think) I need to do is noindex some useless pages and rewrite important ones with great content, but for the noindexing part I'm quite hesitant on the how.
There's like 200 000 pages with no visits since a year, so I guess they're pretty much useless junk that would be better off in noindex. But the webmaster is afraid that noindexing that much pages will hurt its long tail (in case of future visits), so he wants to check the SERP position of every one of them, to only eliminate those that are in the top 3 (for these there's no hope of amelioration he thinks). I think it would be wasting a lot of time and resources for nothing, and I'd advise to noindex them regardless of their position.
The problem is I lack the experience to be sure of it and how to do it : Is it wise to noindex 200 000 pages bluntly in one time (isn't it a bad signal for google ?) or should we do this progressively in like a few months ?
Thanks a lot for your help !
Johann.
-
Sorry you're stuck in that spot. I really would be worried that this "fix" would make life worse for everyone, but it's tough to come up with solutions that don't seem like band-aids. Best you may be able to do is get more aggressive about the de-indexation, focus on improving some core content, and maybe re-work the internal linking to focus more on key pages (and spread internal PR a bit less thinly).
-
Yeah, I get what you're saying and totally agree, since a radical overhaul is what I recommended from the start, but only got a no-can-do response... until now. But their "yes" is more like :
-
Ok, rebuild our website entirely, just don't touch our website.
-
Errr what ?
Anyway, so a similar domain name and brand was in fact a bad idea.
Thanks a lot for your input (and your awesome moz posts !
Cheers,
Johann.
-
-
Given their history, two domains with overlapping content and a similar name seems like a terrible idea to me, to be blunt. If this really is a Panda issue, then you're potentially going to aggravate the situation and send out even more low quality signals.
It's hard to speculate, but I've seen a few situations where what seemed like Panda turned out to be something deeper. Directory clients have been hit hard, for example, as Google just seems to be devaluing the entire space (along with price comparison sites, many types of affiliates, etc.). I'm not talking about spammy sites, even, but the ones that provide some original value. It's just that Google doesn't see them as the end-supplier, and so they're getting discounted.
An end-run to a new domain isn't going to fix this. I strongly suspect that you've got something deeper going on that may take a radical overhaul of the main site and even the business/brand. I think it's better to accept that now than continue a gradual decline over the next couple of years.
-
Hi everyone,
Some news on this story that may (or may not) be of interest for some (even if I can't give the domain name), and a new question (I may also start another discussion for that one) :
-
The website has lost a significant amount of trafic over the passing year, even with the massive noindexing of 200 000 pages (I finally convinced him to do it, but it clearly wasn't enough). About a 40% loss gradually with some panda updates (dates coincide nicely).
-
We've worked hard on it to offer a new section of interesting content (not a blog but nearly) that presented interesting original statistics on the niche with visual presentations, and a bunch of related content, about a hundred pages total. It's like a drop in the ocean, but it gained a bit of popularity, some nice links and good branding. I think it's probably the reason why the website is still standing, it even made a few top positions on new important keywords.
-
Last but not least, we've improved the user experience and bumped up our conversion rates so the loss in trafic is partly compensated by the gains in conversion (not completely though).
It still drags nearly a million pages of thin content, and still takes a little hit with every Panda roll-out... So no recovery, but a controled descent, as it's still alive.
Now I got the green light to a complete do-over, starting a rebuild with a completely new (lighter) structure and a new design. We're pumped full of ideas of great content and user experience, so it's gonna be a fresh new start. BUT, (there's always a but), the webmaster wants to keep the old website while it's still alive and I wonder if we can take a similar domain name to capitalize on the brand popularity. Like www.brand-domain.com instead of www.branddomain.com (in case it's not clear, we'll take the same domain name with a dash in it, so the brand stays recognizable).Is it gonna look manipulative for Google to have two websites with nearly the same domain name, the exact same brand, the same service (so the same keywords targeted) ? Any other caveats ?
(I know they are going to compete with each other, but they'll have different contents, and it would be temporary : as soon as the new one reaches the first one's popularity, we'll prepare a proper redirect - could be a month, could be a year later)Thanks for any input ! I'll wait before trying to start a new discussion to avoid any clutter^^
Johann
-
-
Thanks a lot for your insight dr pete
I'll sell the large cut sooner or later by convincing him. It's either that or I use a time machine to show his future stats when Google release the next Panda tweaks ^^
Option 1 is easier after all !
-
I wish I could convince people that more DOES NOT EQUAL better when it comes to index size. You'd think Panda would've been the nail in that coffin, but too many webmasters are still operating in 2005.
-
I've never seen an issue where a large-scale META NOINDEX caused Google to get suspicious. It's possible to NOINDEX the wrong pages and lose traffic, but Google generally doesn't get jumpy about it like they would a large scale 301-redirect (where you might be PR-sculpting).
If these are really duplicates, canonical tags might be a better bet. Honestly, while I agree with Stephen 99.9%, if there's no glaring current issue, you could ease into it. Start with the worst culprits - obvious, 100% duplicates. That should be an easier sell, too. If you can't sell the larger cut, it's not going to matter.
-
Damn, even by saying pages that don't generate traffic now won't much more in the future, and by giving an educated estimation of 0.05% potential future gains by keeping them versus the boatload of progress it could mean for the website to noindex them, it couldn't convince the webmaster to cut them out of the index...
Anyway thanks for your help everyone !
-
noindex asap
thumbs up for this
its not going to suddenly appear out of nowhere
ha ha... for sure!
-
Can you change the structure of the site and perhaps see this as an opportunity...
(granted lots of work required)
Adding another level of Sub categories to separate the content further and allow better indexing ?
-
If you use robots, it will not be able to read the follow tag, what i was suggesting is dont use robots but use meta tage "no-index,follow" to allow link juice to flow even though they are not indexed.
Search engines can still follow links of pages not indexxed, but a robots tells them they are not allowed to crawl the page.
-
Thanks for your replies.
Well, I'm not asking whether I should noindex those pages, I'm pretty sure I have to.
It's just that, noindex brutally one fifth of a website in one time would seem potentially suspect for the search engines... So I wonder if I should very carefully choose which ones to noindex and which ones to keep indexed even among unvisited pages, like the webmaster suggests, or do it slowly over a long period of time.
It's a big decision, I'm appealing to your professional experience to prevent me from making a potential mistake.
@AWCthreads : For the case of an e-commerce website, your suggestion would seem reasonable, because a robots.txt won't keep the pages out of the index if there's links to them, but would reduce the quantity of duplicate content. But in my case, it would not be enough, so the noindex meta tag is my only option it seems.
@Stephen : you're right, traffic can't appear out of thin air for these pages. Even if some of those should begin to see visits, they would still add up to a negligible part I believe. But I don't have the experience to support it or the numbers to prove it.
@Alan Mosley : I'll sure add the follow tag on these pages even if they're not indexed any more, it'll still be valuable. And I guess maybe it would prevent it from appearing too suspicious for the engines, wouldn't it ?
-
First remember that all pages in the index have PageRank and you should use that link juice to your advantage
http://perthseocompany.com.au/seo/tutorials/a-simple-explanation-of-pagerank
Blocking in robots is clumsy, you will have links pointing to pages that are not in the index poring link juice to nowhere. You can add a meta “noindex, follow” tag that will allow link juice to flow in and out of the pages.If the pages are duplicates then I would remove them and fix the broken links it causes.
-
remove from sitemap, noindex asap. he has no longtail from those pages, its not going to suddenly appear out of nowhere
-
Hi Johann. Excellent question and a source of dispute for some people. I've not done it, but many people who want to no-index a large volume of pages will create a directory and put those files in the directory and then put a robots.txt on the directory.
Some people would argue why you would want to put a bunch pages (product pages on an ecommerce site) in a no-index file as they will not be seen/shared/sold etc. Well, my response to that would be to prevent juice dillution on pages of little SEO value and help keep the juice directed at the 20-30% of the products that are making you the most money.
I'm curious what others have to say about this and hope people weigh in on it.
-
Yeah they are mostly duplicates (only about 10% difference in text with variations)...
But near 80% of the pages are indexed, probably because the website has a strong authority and a lot of visits : these are useful pages for people, just not useful to read^^. That's why I'm so hesitant to noindex that much content, even if the website HAS to improve its quality content ratio if it wants to stay for the long run.
Maybe I'll start with testing your sitemap idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
-
Are the pages mostly duplicate content? Do you know how many have been indexed?
If it's a lot, then yes, noindexing them will make it look like your site has dropped a ton of content. But if it's duplicate then I'd go for it anyway as it will probably help things.
Alternatively, how about removing them from the sitemap instead? They may still get found but at least you're giving them a clue that those pages don't matter to you.
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
-
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
What do you use to come up with content ideas?
Buzzsumo charge and not sure it's worth it. didn't find Quora helpful. Any others?
Technical SEO | | SwanseaMedicine2 -
If content is at the bottom of the page but the code is at the top, does Google know that the content is at the bottom?
I'm working on creating content for top category pages for an ecommerce site. I can put them under the left hand navigation bar, and that content would be near the top in the code. I can also put the content at the bottom center, where it would look nicer but be at the bottom of the code. What's the better approach? Thanks for reading!
Technical SEO | | DA20130 -
Removing a lot of content & changing url structure.
I recently moved an existing ecommerce site, which I recently purchased, from Volusion to Shopify. The new site has a completely different link structure. The old site also had about 120 products which are not even close to being up to par with the products I now have on the site. So I had to remove all of those pages too. I was just wondering which measures I need to take to deal with this? I created a really nice 404 page. I also 301 redirected the pages which still exist. But I was wondering if there is anything else I should do? Should I request a removal of all the old pages, which no longer exist? Should I do something else I'm not thinking about? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. jim
Technical SEO | | PedroAndJobu0 -
Are recipes excluded from duplicate content?
Does anyone know how recipes are treated by search engines? For example, I know press releases are expected to have lots of duplicates out there so they aren't penalized. Does anyone know if recipes are treated the same way. For example, if you Google "three cheese beef pasta shells" you get the first two results with identical content.
Technical SEO | | RiseSEO0 -
Different TLD's same content - duplicate content? - And a problem in foreign googles?
Hi, Operating from the Netherlands with customers troughout Europe we have for some countries the same content. In the netherlands and Belgium Dutch is spoken and in Germany and Switserland German is spoken. For these countries the same content is provided. Does Google see this as duplicate content? Could it be possible that a german customer gets the Swiss website as a search result when googling in the German Google? Thank you for your assistance! kind regards, Dennis Overbeek Dennis@acsi.eu
Technical SEO | | SEO_ACSI0 -
The Bible and Duplicate Content
We have our complete set of scriptures online, including the Bible at http://lds.org/scriptures. Users can browse to any of the volumes of scriptures. We've improved the user experience by allowing users to link to specific verses in context which will scroll to and highlight the linked verse. However, this creates a significant amount of duplicate content. For example, these links: http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1.5 http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1.5-10 http://lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1 All of those will link to the same chapter in the book of James, yet the first two will highlight the verse 5 and verses 5-10 respectively. This is a good user experience because in other sections of our site and on blogs throughout the world webmasters link to specific verses so the reader can see the verse in context of the rest of the chapter. Another bible site has separate html pages for each verse individually and tends to outrank us because of this (and possibly some other reasons) for long tail chapter/verse queries. However, our tests indicated that the current version is preferred by users. We have a sitemap ready to publish which includes a URL for every chapter/verse. We hope this will improve indexing of some of the more popular verses. However, Googlebot is going to see some duplicate content as it crawls that sitemap! So the question is: is the sitemap a good idea realizing that we can't revert back to including each chapter/verse on its own unique page? We are also going to recommend that we create unique titles for each of the verses and pass a portion of the text from the verse into the meta description. Will this perhaps be enough to satisfy Googlebot that the pages are in fact unique? They certainly are from a user perspective. Thanks all for taking the time!
Technical SEO | | LDS-SEO0 -
Canonical pagination content
Hello We have a large ecommerce site, as you are aware that ecommerce sites has canonical issues, I have read various sources on how best to practice canonical on ecommerce site but I am not sure yet.. My concert is pagination where I am on category product listing page.. the pagination will have all different product not same however the meta data will be same so should I make let's say page 2 or 3 to main category page or keep them as is to index those pages? Another issue is using filters, where I am on any page and I filter by price or manufacturer basically the page will be same so here It seems issue of duplicate content, so should I canonical to category page only for those result types? So basically If I let google crawl my pagination content and I only canonical those coming with filter search result that would be best practice? and would google webmaster parameter handling case would be helpful in this scenario ? Please feel free to ask in case you have any queries regards
Technical SEO | | CNMOnline28
Carl0