Https-pages still in the SERP's
-
Hi all,
my problem is the following: our CMS (self-developed) produces https-versions of our "normal" web pages, which means duplicate content.
Our it-department put the <noindex,nofollow>on the https pages, that was like 6 weeks ago.</noindex,nofollow>
I check the number of indexed pages once a week and still see a lot of these https pages in the Google index. I know that I may hit different data center and that these numbers aren't 100% valid, but still... sometimes the number of indexed https even moves up.
Any ideas/suggestions? Wait for a longer time? Or take the time and go to Webmaster Tools to kick them out of the index?
Another question: for a nice query, one https page ranks No. 1. If I kick the page out of the index, do you think that the http page replaces the No. 1 position? Or will the ranking be lost? (sends some nice traffic :-))...
thanx in advance
-
Hi Irving,
yes, you are right. The https login page is the "problem", other pages that I visit after are staying on https, as all the links on these page are https links. So you could surf all the pages on the domain in a https mode, if you visited the login page before
I spoke to our it department about this problem and they told me it would take time to program our CMS different. My boss then told me to find another, cheaper solution - so I came up with the noindex,nofollow.
So, do you see another solution whithout having to ask our it department again? They< are always very busy and almost have no time for nobody
-
Hi Malcolm,
thankx for the help. Before we put the noindex, nofollow on these pages, I thought about using the rel=canonical.
To be honest, I did not choose rel=canonical because I think that the noindex,nofollow ia a stronger sign for Google, and that the rel=canonical is more like a hint, which G does not always follow... but sure, i can be wrong!
You are saying that the noindex could end worse. The https-pages only contain links to https-pages, think of these pages like "normal" pages, same content, link structure etc. etc. Every URL just is a https, internal, external....
So I thought the noindex,nofollow would not hurt the http pages, because they cannot be found on the https ones - what do you think?
-
Is there a reason you're supporting both http and https versions of every page? If not, 301 redirect to either http or https for each page. I'd only leave pages that need to be secure as https, e.g. purchase pages. Non-secure pages are generally a better user experience in terms of load time since the user can use cached files from previous pages and non-encrypted pages are more lightweight.
If you're out to support both for those secure users who like https everywhere, I'd go with Malcolm's solution and rel canonical to the version you'd like to have indexed rather than using noindex nofollow.
-
do you have absolute links on your site that are keeping https?
For example, if you go to a secure login page and then click a homepage navigation link on the secure https page do you see the homepage link going back to http or staying on https?
That is usually the cause of this problem you should look into that. I would not manually request removal of the pages in WMT i would just fix the problem and let google update it itself.
-
have you tried canonicalising the http version?
Using a noindex nofollow rule could end up being worse as you are telling Google not to follow the pages or index them and this will include both http and https.
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
-
Microsoft IIS SEO tool claims I have no H1... It's not true.
I have 4300 pages that the tool claims are missing the H1 value but they are there. Here is an example: http://antiquebanknotes.com/rare-currency/first-national-bank-atlanta-illinois-2283.aspx/ Has anyone seen this before?
Technical SEO | | Banknotes0 -
Drupal's Yoast
Hi. I'm wondering if anyone knows of an equivalent to Yoast for Drupal sites? Is there such a thing? I've been asked whether I could optimize a Drupal site and am wondering if the guiding principles and techniques I use for HTML and Wordpress sites can be easily transferred to a Drupal implementation, or whether I might be setting myself (and the client!) up for failure. Any observations or advice would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | DonnaDuncan0 -
Anything new if determining how many of a sites pages are in Google's supplemental index vs the main index?
Since site:mysite.com *** -sljktf stopped working to find pages in the supplemental index several years ago has anyone found another way to identify content that has been regulated to the supplemental index?
Technical SEO | | SEMPassion0 -
Google dropping pages from SERPs even though indexed and cached. (Shift over to https suspected.)
Anybody know why pages that have previously been indexed - and that are still present in Google's cache - are now not appearing in Google SERPs? All the usual suspects - noindex, robots, duplication filter, 301s - have been ruled out. We shifted our site over from http to https last week and it appears to have started then, although we have also been playing around with our navigation structure a bit too. Here are a few examples... Example 1: Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149002-memory-drawings-there-is-no-perfect-place SERP (1): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place SERP (2): https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=memory+drawings+there+is+no+perfect+place+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com Example 2: SERP: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deaf+center+recount+site%3Awww.normanrecords.com Live URL: https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount- Cached copy: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.normanrecords.com/records/149001-deaf-center-recount- These are pages that have been linked to from our homepage (Moz PA of 68) prominently for days, are present and correct in our sitemap (https://www.normanrecords.com/catalogue_sitemap.xml), have unique content, have decent on-page optimisation, etc. etc. We moved over to https on 11 Aug. There were some initial wobbles (e.g. 301s from normanrecords.com to www.normanrecords.com got caught up in a nasty loop due to the conflicting 301 from http to https) but these were quickly sorted (i.e. spotted and resolved within minutes). There have been some other changes made to the structure of the site (e.g. a reduction in the navigation options) but nothing I know of that would cause pages to drop like this. For the first example (Memory Drawings) we were ranking on the first page right up until this morning and have been receiving Google traffic for it ever since it was added to the site on 4 Aug. Any help very much appreciated! At the very end of my tether / understanding here... Cheers, Nathon
Technical SEO | | nathonraine0 -
What to do with 404 errors when you don't have a similar new page to 301 to ??
Hi If you have 404 errors for pages that you dont have similar content pages to 301 them to, should you just leave them (the 404's are optimised/qood quality with related links & branding etc) and they will eventually be de-indexed since no longer exist or should you 'remove url' in GWT ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Ecommerce website: Product page setup & SKU's
I manage an E-commerce website and we are looking to make some changes to our product pages to try and optimise them for search purposes and to try and improve the customer buying experience. This is where my head starts to hurt! Now, let's say I am selling a T shirt that comes in 4 sizes and 6 different colours. At the moment my website would have 24 products, each with pretty much the same content (maybe differing references to the colour & size). My idea is to change this and have 1 main product page for the T-shirt, but to have 24 product SKU's/variations that exist to give the exact product details. Some different ways I have been considering to do this: a) have drop-down fields on the product page that ask the customer to select their Tshirt size and colour. The image & price then changes on the page. b) All product 24 product SKUs sre listed under the main product with the 'Add to Cart' open next to each one. Each one would be clickable so a page it its own right. Would I need to set up a canonical links for each SKU that point to the top level product page? I'm obviously looking to minimise duplicate content but Im not exactly sure on how to set this up - its a big decision so I need to be 100% clear before signing off on anything. . Any other tips on how to do this or examples of good e-commerce websites that use product SKus well? Kind regards Tom
Technical SEO | | DHS_SH0 -
Additional product information: the product's sales page or a blog post?
I want to go in-depth about different customizations for custom caps, which is one of the products we offer. I just don't know whether it would be better--from an SEO perspective--to expand the caps sales page we already have or to write a blog post to give the site another valuable indexed page. From a user standpoint, I don't think it's as important, because if I do it the blog way, I can't just put a link on the page saying, Want more customizations? Visit our blog post. Any opinions?
Technical SEO | | UnderRugSwept1 -
If multiple links on a page point to the same URL, and one of them is no-followed, does that impact the one that isn't?
Page A has two links on it that both point to Page B. Link 1 isn't no-follow, but Link 2 is. Will Page A pass any juice to Page B?
Technical SEO | | Jay.Neely0