How do I eliminate indexed products?
-
Please help! We got clobbered by Penguin and are at risk of having to close down after 10 years. We have been trying to figure out why and believe now it might be because of duplicate content. We added 2" inserts in March (over 500):
http://www.trophycentral.com/inserts1.html
Even though each is a different products, SEOMOZ is saying they are considered duplicate content. Given the timing, we think this might be the cause, even though it is totally legitimate.
Question - since these are now indexed and since we can't easily add content quickly, what is the best way to handle this situation? A no-index tag?
Is there a way to let Google know that their algorithm is detroying legitimate businesses??
-
Got it - thanks. I will be making the changes over the next few days. Unfortunately, I published the site last night and it will take about 18 hours so I can't access it for a while.
-
Remeber 6that should be a no-index,follow not a no-index,no-follow
-
Thanks, Alan. I had put a no-index, no-follow on the main category (inserts1.html) so that google could not get to the individual products to index them. That was the quickest thing I could do given how many products I need to update. Based on your note though, I will go through the individual products with a no-index, but it will take some time. Thanks again!
-
I can see them now - THANK YOU!!!
-
If they are noindex, then it should not be problem, but i would not no-follow as all links pointing the the no follow pages will waster their link juice, if you have no-index follow then the link jucie will flow back out of the no-indexed pages.
but having a look at the page, i can not see any no-index tag in the page
-
site:trophycentral.com -www shows all content indexed not within the www subdomain.
-
Sorry to bother you again - last question - I promise! Where did you see the mobile.trophycentral.com pages indexed? I when on to google and didn't see them in the main index. Thanks!
-
Alan, thank you! I just sent a note to the programmer who created the mobile site. For now, I am going to have them get it out of the index and I have stopped the redirection so that there is no mobile site. This may not be the best thing for the long-run, but for now I can at least be sure I fix the mobile issue. I have also fixed the strictlygifts linking. Working on removing more duplicate content now.
Thanks again!
-
This is a sad reality that many business owners face. SEO is a very complex process and unfortunately it's a case of two-fold barriers to success.
On the one hand, not all SEO's really know, or even if they do, don't consider long-term ramifications of what they might be recommending. Many of us in the industry think and act otherwise, however it is a problem nonetheless.
On the other hand, Google constantly changes their rules to a certain extent - as more people look for ways to game the system, what may have been acceptable previously can become unacceptable as Google tries to clean up the mess. It's a vicious circle.
So...
You can get "rid" of indexed pages by blocking them through a robots.txt file - if there are patterns to their URLs. if it's an entire site, you can block the whole site in one line in the robots.txt file. If it's multiple sections of a site, you can block entire sections while leaving other sections open for search indexing. A professional should be tapped to help you with that.
Its important to consider whether pages should be blocked, or instead, redirected to other pages that you want indexed or are indexed that are similar in nature.
Bad link evaluation is a professional process and should not be undertaken lightly. In many cases, site owners will ignore your requests, so it's important to at least get the request process right and to document the process. Again, a professional is needed for that.
And yes, you can submit a request after that's done.
Unfortunately, anyone you task to do the work that would be able to help you will both charge you for their time and cannot guarantee that what is done will be enough. It's another reality of the world we operate in because Google cannot reveal trade secrets to help you know what exactly needs to be done.
-
Alan, thank you so much for this. I am the founder of the business and not a webmaster, so parden these questions:
1. I originally thought it was the mobile site that caused this given the timing, but was told that somehow google was on the lookout for mobile.xxx and that it was not an issue.** I am sure you are right! How can I get rid of the indexed pages? ** I turned the mobile redirect off a couple of weeks ago so it is not even active.
2. My search provider told me they made changes to get rid of most of the pages, but since I are still seeing them, I am concerned. Is thiere something I can do to get rid of the pages?
3. I can easily change strictlygifts - this is the only thing that was intentional (but done about 8 years ago!).
4. How can I tell which are bad links - low page rank?
I have made thousands of changes based on the advice of others - improved the site speed, removed crawl errors, got rid of hundreds of pages, added duplicate content, etc. We were not given any sort of manual penalty - can I still submit a request after the above is done?
Thank you again. I have built this business over the last 10 years and to see it destroyed overnight is heartbreaking. I can't tell you how much your help is appreciated.
-
I checked a few things -you have bigger fish to fry.
Search.trophycentral.com and mobile.trophycentral.com - are either of those causing duplicate content problems on a mass scale? Google has 8k www pages indexed, and three times as many non www pages indexed.
Then looking at your inbound link profile, you've got a huge volume of inbound links from very low quality "SEO only" sites relative to your total inbound link profile. Very serious problem there.
Then you've got another site you apparently own site (StrictlyGifts.com) where you have a footer link with keywords, from every page of that site pointing to the TrophyCentral site.
The list goes on.
The cumulative impact is clearly a case of your site showing all the signs of SEO stuffing and unnatural link building. Even if some of it was unintentional (like the duplicate content conflicts across sub-domains), the pattern is clear.
1. Do all you can to get as many of the bad links removed as possible. Keep a spreadsheet of that effort.
2. Block search.trophycentral.com from search engines.
3. Either redirect mobile.trophycentral.com to the main www site and have the main www site redesigned to be flexible and responsive to different viewing platforms, or get together with a mobile SEO expert to otherwise address that duplicate content issue.
4. Add high quality unique descriptive text based content to all of your primary category and sub-category pages, and even some on every product page.
5. Consider submitting a reconsideration request to Google after you've made real headway on all of that work. Be willing to submit the spreadsheet to show links you've had removed and which you tried to but couldn't. Explain all the other steps you've taken.
You may get a bounce after that or it could just take the next Penguin update if you've done most of that before the next update.
Either way, that's just recommendations that come from only a few minutes looking at your site. There could be many other issues to address.
-
Alan, thanks. Not to sound stupid, but
1. What about the product looks like it is spam to you?
2. If I have a no index, no follow in inserts1, will that prevent goolge from all of the sub pages?
3. If the pages are already indexed, how can I get rid of them?
Sorry for the ignorant questions, but I own the business and I am not a webmaster.
Thnaks!
-
I had a quick look at this page http://www.trophycentral.com/50401.html
I found below, it is much longer thenthe sample i gave here, i would get rid of it, it looks like you are trying to spam the results
var = new Array('Have used them many times. Seamless transactions - all done through the web. Top quality product. Fast delivery. Custom engraving, including logos. Highly recommended. DR Angola, IN','This was my first order with Trophy Central, and my experience was great. I did everything on-line, the....
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
-
Any idea why pages are not being indexed?
Hi Everyone, One section on our website is not being indexed. The product pages are, but not some of the subcategories. These are very old pages, so thought it was strange. Here is an example one one: https://www.moregems.com/loose-cut-gemstones/prasiolite-loose-gemstones.html If you take a chunk of text, it is not found in Google. No issues in Bing/Yahoo, only Google. You think it takes a submission to Search Console? Jeff
Technical SEO | | vetofunk1 -
Homepage indexation issue
Hello all, I've been scratching my head about this one for a while now... Let me explain the situation. I'm working on a multi-lingual website. Visitors are redirected (301) when they visit the homepage to the correct domain.com/en/default.html, domain.com/nl/default.html, domain.com/fr/default.html or domain.com/de/default.html based on browser language. I have doubts about the impact on the ability for Google to index the website because of that, but that's a problem for another day. The problem I'm having right now, is that domain.com/nl/default.html, domain.com/de/default.html and domain.com/fr/default.html are all indexed. When I search for the URL in Google I get the correct page on number one so I'm pretty sure those are indexed correctly. When I search for domain/en/default.html though, the homepage appears without /en/default.html extension. Does this mean Google assumes the domain.com page is the same as domain.com/en/default.html even though the redirect that's in place? Would be great if someone could shed some light on this. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | buiserik0 -
Delete indexed spam pages
Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone had this same situation, or may know of a solution. One of our sites was recently pharmahacked 😞 We found an entire pharmaceutical site in one of the folder of our site. We were able to delete it, but now Google is showing us on not found error for those pages we deleted. First, I guess the question is will this harm us? If so, anyway we can fix this? Obliviously we don't want to do a 303 redirect for spam pages. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Bridge_Education_Group0 -
Product Descriptions for Localized eCommerce Store
Hi, We currently have an eCommerce store that only sells in one country. We are going to open separate stores that will target different countries. As far as product descriptions go my initial plan was to use the same descriptions but then block product pages from being indexed. However this has also ended up blocking us from being able to use Google's product listing ads (it rejects the data feed due to not being able to index the products). Is there a way to copy the descriptions and avoid a delicate content issues without blocking our product pages from being indexed? Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | pgicom0 -
Homepage indexed and cached as the wrong domain
I'm a bit baffled by this one and would love if someone in the community could help provide some clarity! In general, my website (PSG1.com) is indexed and cached correctly. The exception is that the homepage is actually cached as plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com, another domain we own. Header checkers all confirm that plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com redirects to PSG1.com, not the other way around No canonical is set for that domain. At one time, I used the Moz toolbar to view attributes and it registered PSG1.com as having a response code of both 200 and 301 to plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com. However, I cannot replicate this. Any idea why the homepage of PSG1.com is not indexed/cached correctly? I appreciate your wisdom!
Technical SEO | | BTeubner0 -
De-indexed from Google
Hi Search Experts! We are just launching a new site for a client with a completely new URL. The client can not provide any access details for their existing site. Any ideas how can we get the existing site de-indexed from Google? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | rikmon0 -
Why is my office page not being indexed?
Good Morning from 24 degrees C partly cloudy wetherby UK 🙂 This page is not being indexed by Google:
Technical SEO | | Nightwing
http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/office-to-let-leeds/ 1st Question Ive checked robots txt file no problems, i'm in the midst of updating the xml sitemap (it had the old one in place). It only has one link from this page http://www.sandersonweatherall.co.uk/Site-Map/ So is the reason oits not being indexed just a simple case of lack if SEO juice from inbound links so the remedy lies in routing more inbound links to the offending page? 2nd question Is the quickest way to diagnose if a web address is not being indexed to cut and paste the url in the Google search box and if it doesnt return the page theres a problem? Thanks in advance, David0 -
What to do if my site was De-indexed?
Hello fellow SEOs, I have been doing SEO for about a year now, I'm not expert, but I know enough to get the job done. I'm learning everyday about better techniques. So enough about that... Tonight I noticed that my site has, I believe, been de-indexed. Its a fairly new site, as we just launched it a few days ago and I went in and did all the title tags and meta. I still have to go in to do the h1 and h2 tags...plus add some alt tags and anchor text. Well anyways, after a couple of days after the title tags were implemented. I was propagating all over the place. Using my keyword tool here...I was number on the first page in Google for 71 or the 88 keywords. My new site was just indexed yesterday and thats when i noticed all my keywords. Well today I noticed that I am no where to be found, even if i type in my company's name. PLEASE help me out...any advice would be appreciated. Thank you. p.s. could my competitors could have done something to my site? just wondering... The website is www.eggheadconsultants.com
Technical SEO | | Jegghead1