Should I remove these pages from the Google index?
-
Hi there,
Please have a look at the following URL http://www.elefant-tours.com/index.php?callback=imagerotator&gid=65&483. It's a "sitemap" generated by a Wordpress plug-in called NextGen gallery and it maps all the images that have been added to the site through this plugin, which is quite a lot in this case. I can see that these "sitemap" pages have been indexed by Google and I'm wondering whether I should remove these or not? In my opinion these are pages that a search engine would never would want to serve as a search result and pages that a visitor never would want to see. Attracting any traffic through Google images is irrelevant in this case. What is your advice? Block it or leave it indexed or something else?
-
Thanks for your responses.
I'm not too worried about users finding these sitemaps as they only appear very far into the search results. The only worry I had was that these pages could be seen as low-quality/thin pages of content. I guess David-Kley's suggestion of naming the images properly could kill two birds with one stone; Have relevant content indexed on these pages and perhaps attract a few more visitors through google image search. Thanks for the suggestion!
-
A few questions:
How many pages back in a site search do you see these? Meaning if you do a site:www.yourdomain.com how many pages back do you see these appear? If it's like page 10 or more, I doubt a user would ever see the URL's at all.
Second, I am curious as to why you have an image sitemap, and went to that length to include images in your submissions, but didn't name the images in an SEO-friendly format? For example:
http://www.elefant-tours.com//gallery/keys-hotel/07_img_0949triesx.jpg
...is a young woman sitting at a table, getting served a drink. I would think that the image could be named "hotel food dining" or something of that nature. Just an idea, probably not a huge deal, but every bit counts. You have no idea what a user might type in to get to a site. Someone might skip web results altogether, and go straight to Google images to find what they are looking for, especially in the hotel industry. They will be looking for what appears to be the most relaxing, and luxurious experience.
You could always disable the plugin, and make one big image sitemap. The sitemap URL you listed shows the image son that particular page. In a "all-in-one" image sitemap, you would list out the images and image location (URL) individually. Might work out better for you, as Google would get the big picture (pun intended) all at once.
Hope this helps!
-
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Google can tell what a sitemap looks like. If it bothers you, you can remove it from WMT. I don't believe you can put meta data that Google follows in an XML 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
-
Google not index main keyword on homepage in 2 countries same language, rest of pages no problem
Hello, Two the same websites, two countries, same language http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.nl / http://www.lavistarelatiegeschenken.be The main keyword "relatiegeschenken" in top 10 of netherlands (steady position for 2 years) and in ** belgium** not in top 15****0 the main keyword "relatiegeschenken| but other keywords good positions, thats so strange I didn't understand and now every thing turned around suddenly: Now the main keyword "relatiegeschenken suddenly " not anymore in top 10 in the netherslandsits gone and other kewyords still good positions , now **main keyword suddenly in top 10 of belgium 2 years was not **other pages still ok. It are exactly the same websites and the same language. So double content But my programmer told me in google webmaster tools settings are right, so no problem with double content ? I really dont understand first main keyword in netherland in top 10 and in belgium not, now changed, now in belgium top 10 and not findable in the netherland on the main keyword. Maybe problem in code ? Maybe problems in code because websites are identical and active in two different countries wit same language ? No message about a penalty message in WMT, no spam links week i delete two strong but according to Linkdetox a bad links. I can not find a solution but its really important keyword that my customer want back in top 10 in netherland, like it was. All other positions and visitors are the same. Befor i have had this with belgium site, also main keyword google not index homepage. But suddenly no google show in belgium in top 10 Its turned around Kind regards, Marcel
Technical SEO | | Bossie720 -
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are not Indexing in Google
Hello Every one, I have a Wordpress website in which i installed All in SEO plugin and wrote meta titles and descriptions for each and every page and posts and submitted website to index. But after Google crawl the Meta Titles and Descriptions shown by Google are something different that are not found in Content. Even i verified the Cached version of the website and gone through Source code that crawled at that moment. the meta title which i have written is present there. Apart from this, the same URL's are displaying perfect meta titles and descriptions which i wrote in Yahoo and Bing Search Engines. Can anyone explain me how to resolve this issue. Website URL: thenewyou (dot) in Regards,
Technical SEO | | SatishSEOSiren0 -
Web Page Dropped Out of Google?
One of our web pages seems to have completely dropped out of Google after featuring on page 1 for a number of years. It can't be a site wide issue as all other web pages are performing as normal. The page is http://www.contractormoney.com/income-protection/ and the key phrase it was performing well for was 'contractor income protection'. Any ideas??
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Why would GWT say 0 pages indexed ?
Hi Looking in GWT > Google Index > Index Status says 0 pages indexed Yes if i search manually on google for brand site is listed, and i see organic traffic from Google in analytics I take it this is likely an error in GWT and nothing to worry about ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Properly Moving Blog from Index to its Own Page
Right now I have a website that is exclusively a blog. I want to create pages outside of the blog and move the blog to a page other than the index file e.g.) from domain.com to domain.com/blog I will have the blog post pages stay in the root directory. e.g.) domain.com/blog-post Any suggestions how to properly tell SE's and other websites that the blog has moved?
Technical SEO | | Bartell0 -
Google refuses to index our domain. Any suggestions?
A very similar question was asked previously. (http://www.seomoz.org/q/why-google-did-not-index-our-domain) We've done everything in that post (and comments) and then some. The domain is http://www.miwaterstewardship.org/ and, so far, we have: put "User-agent: * Allow: /" in the robots.txt (We recently removed the "allow" line and included a Sitemap: directive instead.) built a few hundred links from various pages including multiple links from .gov domains properly set up everything in Webmaster Tools submitted site maps (multiple times) checked the "fetch as googlebot" display in Webmaster Tools (everything looks fine) submitted a "request re-consideration" note to Google asking why we're not being indexed Webmaster Tools tells us that it's crawling the site normally and is indexing everything correctly. Yahoo! and Bing have both indexed the site with no problems and are returning results. Additionally, many of the pages on the site have PR0 which is unusual for a non-indexed site. Typically we've seen those sites have no PR at all. If anyone has any ideas about what we could do I'm all ears. We've been working on this for about a month and cannot figure this thing out. Thanks in advance for your advice.
Technical SEO | | NetvantageMarketing0 -
Why is Google only indexing 3 of 8 pages?
Hi everyone, I have a small 8 page website I launched about 6 months ago. For the life of me I can not figure out why google is only indexing 3 of the 8 pages. The pages are not duplicate content in any way. I have good internal linking structure. At this time I dont have many inbound links from others, that will come in time. Am I missing something here? Can someone give me a clue? Thanks Tim Site: www.jparizonaweddingvideos.com
Technical SEO | | fasctimseo0 -
Is this 404 page indexed?
I have a URL that when searched for shows up in the Google index as the first result but does not have any title or description attached to it. When you click on the link it goes to a 404 page. Is it simply that Google is removing it from the index and is in some sort of transitional phase or could there be another reason.
Technical SEO | | bfinternet0