Index Pages become No-Index
-
Hi Mozzers,
Here is the scenario:
I created a landing page targeting Holiday keywords for the holiday season. The page has been crawled and indexed - I see my landing page in the SERP. However, because of the CMS layout, since the Holiday is over and I don't want it to be displayed on the homepage, i have to remove the page from hp which makes it no-index (don't ask why, it's how the CMS was built).
Question: How does this affect this LP's search? Since it's already crawled and etc. will it still be on the SERP after i change the page to no-index? If I remove the no-index next year for the holiday season, how does this all play out?
Any insights or information provided will be appreciated.
Thank you!
-
Hey Tommy,
I don't think no-indexing and re-indexing a page will have a negative effect on its ability to rank. As long as all the same ranking signals are in place (links, mentions, on-page optimization, etc.), once it is added back to the index, it should have the same strength as it did the previous year.
As you mentioned, the algorithm will most certainly change over the course of a year and you might have new competitors surface during that time, so I wouldn't expect it to rank in the same position. But your plan for dropping it from the index and re-adding should be fine.
Tim
-
Hi Tim,
Understood. In other words, once i mark it as no-index and Google crawls the page, it will be removed from the SERP even though it was crawled and indexed previously.
I just want to confirm whether it will affect the page's ranking when i re-add the index to the page next year. Lets say Page A is ranked 3 on the SERP but since Holiday is over, i have to put no-index on the page and once Google crawl the site again, it will remove Page A from SERP. Next year, when i re-add index tag to the page, with all the backlink and the site's authority, will it remain rank 3? I understand many things and algorithms can change within the year but I guess my question is whether i can keep Page A will still have the same authority unlike a new page.
I hope that is clear.
-
Hi Darren,
I don't want it to be removed but because of the CMS set up, i have to add no-index to the page when I don't want it to be on the homepage. I understand it's confusing/weird but that's how the CMS was set up.
-
Hi Tommy,
Pages are added/removed from the index based on Google's most recent crawl of the page. So if you set the page to no-index now, it will remain in the SERPs until Google next crawls the page and sees that a no-index attribute has been added. This could take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks depending on how often Google crawls your site.
Next year, when you remove the no-index attribute, the same thing will happen in reverse. Google won't add the page back to the index until it crawls your site again and sees that the no-index tag is no longer on that page. In this case, you might be able to get it re-added to the index very quickly by sharing it on Google+ (ref. http://moz.com/blog/google-plus-correlations).
Hope this helps!
Tim
-
If you noindex the page it will eventually be removed, but not immediately.
Why just remove it manually from Google from GWT, and also block it in your robots.txt file?
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
-
Will Reducing Number of Low Page Authority Page Increase Domain Authority?
Our commercial real estate site (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) contains about 800 URLs. Since 2012 the domain authority has dropped from 35 to about 20. Ranking and traffic dropped significantly since then. The site has about 791 URLs. Many are set to noindex. A large percentage of these pages have a Moz page authority of only "1". It is puzzling that some pages that have similar content to "1" page rank pages rank much better, in some cases "15". If we remove or consolidate the poorly ranked pages will the overall page authority and ranking of the site improve? Would taking the following steps help?: 1. Remove or consolidate poorly ranking unnecessary URLs?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
2. Update content on poorly ranking URLs that are important?
3. Create internal text links (as opposed to links from menus) to critical pages? A MOZ crawl of our site's URLs is visible at the link below. I am wondering if the structure of the site is just not optimized for ranking and what can be done to improve it. THANKS. https://www.dropbox.com/s/oqchfqveelm1q11/CRAWL www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (1).csv?dl=0 Thanks,
Alan0 -
Google Search Console - Indexed Pages
I am performing a site audit and looking at the "Index Status Report" in GSC. This shows a total of 17 URLs have been indexed. However when I look at the Sitemap report in GSC it shows 9,000 pages indexed. Also, when I perform a site: search on Google I get 24,000 results. Can anyone help me to explain these anomalies?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | richdan0 -
Google indexing wrong pages
We have a variety of issues at the moment, and need some advice. First off, we have a HUGE indexing issue across our entire website. Website in question: http://www.localsearch.com.au/ Firstly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | localdirectories
In Google.com.au, if you search for 'plumbers gosford' (https://www.google.com.au/#q=plumbers+gosford), the wrong page appears - in this instance, the page ranking should be http://www.localsearch.com.au/Gosford,NSW/Plumbers I can see this across the board, across multiple locations. Secondly
Recently I've seen Google reporting in 'Crawl Errors' in webmaster tools URLs such as:
http://www.localsearch.com.au/Saunders-Beach,QLD/Electronic-Equipment-Sales-Repairs&Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA This is an invalid URL, and more specifically, those query strings seem to be referrer queries from Google themselves: &Sa=U&Ei=xs-XVJzAA9T_YQSMgIHQCw&Ved=0CIMBEBYwEg&Usg=AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA Here's the above example indexed in Google: https://www.google.com.au/#q="AFQjCNHXPrZZg0JU3O4yTGjWbijon1Q8OA" Does anyone have any advice on those 2 errors?0 -
More Indexed Pages than URLs on site.
According to webmaster tools, the number of pages indexed by Google on my site doubled yesterday (gone from 150K to 450K). Usually I would be jumping for joy but now I have more indexed pages than actual pages on my site. I have checked for duplicate URLs pointing to the same product page but can't see any, pagination in category pages doesn't seem to be indexed nor does parameterisation in URLs from advanced filtration. Using the site: operator we get a different result on google.com (450K) to google.co.uk (150K). Anyone got any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidLenehan0 -
Page indexed but not showing up at all in search results
I am currently working on the SEO for a roofing company. I have developed GEO targeted pages for both commercial and residential roofing (as well as attic insulation and gutters) and have hundreds of 1st page placements for the GEO targeted keywords. What is baffling me is that they are performing EXTREMELY poorly on the bigger cities, to the point of not evening showing up in the first 5 pages. I also target a page specifically for roof repair in Phoenix and it is not coming up AT ALL. This is not typically the results I get when directly targeting keywords. I'm working on implementing keyword variations as well as adding about 10 or so information pages (@ 700 words) regarding different roofing systems which I plan to cross link on the site, etc. I'm just wondering if there is a simple answer as to why the pages I want to be showing up the most are performing so poorly and what I would need to do to improve their rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dogstarweb0 -
Rel canonical on every page, pointing to home page
I've just started working with a client and have been surprised to find that every page of their site (using Concrete5 CMS) has a rel=canonical pointing to their home page. I'm feeling really dumb, because this seems like a fatal flaw which would keep Google from ranking any page other than the home page... but when I look at Google Analytics, Content > Site Content > Landing Pages, using Secondary Dimension = Source, it seems that Google is delivering users to numerous pages on their site. Can anyone help me out?! Thanks very much!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | measurableROI0 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0 -
Are there any negative effects to using a 301 redirect from a page to another internal page?
For example, from http://www.dog.com/toys to http://www.dog.com/chew-toys. In my situation, the main purpose of the 301 redirect is to replace the page with a new internal page that has a better optimized URL. This will be executed across multiple pages (about 20). None of these pages hold any search rankings but do carry a decent amount of page authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually0