undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    What is your Brand Authority?
    Moz

    What is your Brand Authority?

    Check yours now
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • SEO Q&A

      Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
9
2.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • JimJ
    JimJ last edited by Nov 22, 2018, 3:04 AM

    We are an e-commerce marketplace at for alternative fashion and home decor. We have over 1000+ stores on the marketplace.  Early this year, we switched the website from HTTP to HTTPS in March 2018 and also added noindex and nofollow tags to the store about page and store policies (mostly boilerplate content)

    Our traffic dropped by 45% and we have since not recovered. We have done

    I am wondering could these tags be affecting our rankings?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • JimJ
      JimJ @GastonRiera last edited by Dec 26, 2018, 9:01 PM Dec 26, 2018, 9:01 PM

      Hi Gaston

      Thank you for the detailed response and suggestions. I will follow up with my findings. Point 3 and 4; - I think there is something there.

      James

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • GastonRiera
        Gaston Riera @JimJ last edited by Dec 26, 2018, 9:52 AM Dec 26, 2018, 9:52 AM

        Hi James,

        Great that you've checked out those items and there aren't errors.

        I'd break my response into bullet points so its easier to respond 🙂

        1- I'm bugged that the traffic loss occurs in the same month as the https redirection. 
        That completely tells me that you've either killed, redirected or noindexed some pages that drove a lot of traffic. 
        2- Also it could be possible that you didn't deserve that much traffic due to either being ranked on searches that you weren't relevant or Google didn't fully understand your site. That often happens when migration takes places, as Google needs to re-calculate and fully understand the new site.

        3- If you have still on the old HTTP search Console property, I'd check as many (and in some scalable way) keywords as possible, trying to find which have fallen out in rankings.
        4- When checking those keywords, compare URLs that were ranked, there could be some changes.

        5- And lastly, have you made sure that there aren't any indexation and/or Crawlability issues? Check the raw number of indexable URLs and compare it with the number that Search Console shows in the index coverage report.

        Best wishes.
        GR

        JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Dec 26, 2018, 9:01 PM Reply Quote 0
        • JimJ
          JimJ @GastonRiera last edited by Dec 25, 2018, 6:41 AM Dec 25, 2018, 6:41 AM

          Hi Gaston

          Thank you for sharing your insights.

          1. I have looked through all the pages and made sure we have not noindexed important pages

          2. The migration went well; no double redirects or duplicate content.

          3. I looked through Google search console - Fixed all the errors; (mostly complains about 404 error caused by products that are out of stock or from vendors who leave the website)

          4. A friend said he thinks our pages are over-optimized - and hence that could be the reason; We went ahead and tweaked all the pages that were driving traffic; but change.

          If you have a moment here is our website: www.rebelsmarket.com - If there is anything that standsout please let me know. I appreciate your help

          James

          GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Dec 26, 2018, 9:52 AM Reply Quote 0
          • JimJ
            JimJ @jasongmcmahon last edited by Dec 25, 2018, 6:34 AM Dec 25, 2018, 6:32 AM

            Hi Joe

            We have applied all the redirects carefully and tested them to make sure; we have no duplicate content

            The url:  www.rebelsmarket.com

            Redirect to SSL: March 2018 (we started with the blog and then moved to products page)

            We added; noindex and nofollow tags at the sametime;

            Thank you

            James

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • JimJ
              JimJ @JohnSammon last edited by Dec 25, 2018, 6:31 AM Dec 25, 2018, 6:31 AM

              Hi John

              Sorry, I have been tied up with travel schedule. Here is the website www.rebelsmarket.com

              Thank you for your help John

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • jasongmcmahon
                jasongmcmahon last edited by Dec 19, 2018, 1:23 AM Dec 19, 2018, 1:23 AM

                Hi James,

                Yiut issues lie elsewhere - did anything else happen during the update? My first thoughts are that the redirects were incorrectly applied.

                • Whats the URL?
                • When was the redirect HTTP > HTTPS installed & how?
                • When was  noindex and nofollow tags added?

                You're a month in, so you should be able to recover. Sharing the URL would be useful if you need any further assistance.

                JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Dec 25, 2018, 6:32 AM Reply Quote 0
                • JohnSammon
                  JohnSammon last edited by Dec 4, 2018, 10:08 AM Dec 4, 2018, 10:08 AM

                  Hey James - would you be comfortable sharing the URL? I can run some diagnostics on it to see what other issues could be the cause of the drop.

                  Thanks!

                  John

                  JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Dec 25, 2018, 6:31 AM Reply Quote 0
                  • GastonRiera
                    Gaston Riera last edited by Nov 23, 2018, 12:30 AM Nov 23, 2018, 12:30 AM

                    Hi James,

                    I'm sorry to hear that you've lost over 45% of your traffic.
                    Absolutely not, having a lot of noindex and nofollow pages won't affect your rankings and your SEO strength.

                    On the other hand, a traffic drop could be related to many issues, some of them:

                    • Algorithm changes, there has been a lot of movement this year
                    • You've noindexed some of your high traffic pages
                    • Some part of the migration gone wrong
                    • And the list could be endless.

                    I'd start checking Search Console, there you could spot which keywords and/or URLs are those that aren't ranking that high.

                    It might come handy, this sort of tutorial on analyzing a traffic drop: How to Diagnose SEO Traffic Drops: 11 Questions to Answer - Moz Blog

                    Hope it helps.
                    Best luck.
                    GR

                    JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Dec 25, 2018, 6:41 AM Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    1 out of 9
                    • First post
                      1/9
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • HomeVaultPM

                      Local SEO - ranking the same page for multiple locations

                      Hi everyone, I am aware that issue of local SEO has been approached numerous times, but the situation that I'm dealing with is slightly different, so I'd love to receive your expert advice. I'm running the website of a property management company which services multiple locations (www.homevault.com). From our local offices in the city center, we also service neighboring towns and communities ( ex: we have an office in Charlotte NC, from which we service Charlotte plus a dozen other towns nearby). We wanted to avoid creating dozens of extra local service pages, particularly since our offers are identical per metropolitan area and we're talking of 20-30 additional local pages for each area. Instead, we decided to create local service pages only for the main locations. Needless to say, we're now ranking for the main locations, but we're missing on all searches for property management in neighboring towns (we're doing good on searches such as 'charlotte property management', but we're practically invisible for 'davidson property management', although we're searvicing that area as well). What we've done so far to try and fix the situation: 1. The current location pages do include descriptions of areas that we serve. 2. We've included 1-2 keywords for the sattelite locations in the main location pages, but we're nowhere near the optimization needed to rank for local searches in neighboring towns (ie, some main local service pages rank on pages 2-4 for sattelite towns, so not good enough). 3. We've included the searviced areas in our local GMBs, directories, social media profiles etc. None of these solutions appear to work great. Should I go ahead and create the classic local pages for each and every town and optimize them on those particular keywords, even if the offer is practically the same, and the number of pages risks going out of control? Any other better ideas? Many thanks in advance!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 22, 2021, 5:55 PM | HomeVaultPM
                      0
                    • Luke_Proctor

                      Should you 'noindex' Checkout Pages?

                      Today I was reviewing my Moz analytics and suddenly noticed 1,000 issues with pages without a meta description. I reviewed the list and learned it is 1,000 checkout pages. That's because my website has thousands of agency pages from which you can buy a product, and it reflects that difference on each version of the checkout. So, I was thinking about no-indexing (but continuing to 'follow') these checkout pages, but wondering if it has any knock-on effects I may be unaware of? Any assistance is much appreciated. Luke

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 16, 2020, 4:55 PM | Luke_Proctor
                      0
                    • Brett-S

                      Ranking 1st for a keyword - but when 's' is added to the end we are ranking on the second page

                      Hi everyone - hope you are well. I can't get my head around why we are ranking 1st for a specific keyword, but then when 's' is added to the end of the keyword - we are ranking on the second page. What could be the cause of this? I thought that Google would class both of the keywords the same, in this case, let's say the keyword was 'button'. We would be ranking 1st for 'button', but 'buttons' we are ranking on the second page. Any ideas? - I appreciate every comment.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 26, 2016, 1:31 PM | Brett-S
                      0
                    • MichaelWhyley

                      Newly designed page ranks in Google but then disappears - at a loss as to why.

                      Hi all, I wondered if you could help me at all please? We run a site called getinspired365.com (which is not optimised) and in the last 2 weeks have tried to optimise some new pages that we have added. For example, we have optimised this page - http://getinspired365.com/lifes-a-bit-like-mountaineering-never-look-down This page was added to Google's index via webmaster tools. When I then did a search for the full quote it came back 2nd in Google's search. If I did a search for half the quote (Life is a bit like mountaineering) it also ranked 2nd. We had another quote page that we'd optimised that displayed similar behaviour (it ranked 4th). But then for some reason when I now do the search it doesn't rank in the top 100 results. This, despite, an unoptimised "normal" page ranking 4th for a search such as: Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered. So our domain doesn't seem to be penalised as our "normal" pages are ranking. These pages aren't particularly well designed from an SEO standpoint. But our new pages - which are optimised - keep disappearing from Google, despite the fact they still show as indexed. I've rendered the pages and everything appears fine within Google Webmaster Tools. At a bit of a loss as to why they'd drop so significantly? A few pages I could understand but they've all but been removed. Any one seen this before, and any ideas what could be causing the issue? We have a different URL structure for our new pages in that we have the quote appear in the URL. All the content (bar the quote) that you see in the new pages are unique content that we've written ourselves. Could it be that we've over optimised and Google view these pages as spam? Many thanks in advance for all your help.

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 5, 2016, 1:22 PM | MichaelWhyley
                      0
                    • dkeipper

                      Page Rank Worse After Optimization

                      For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 1, 2015, 12:22 PM | dkeipper
                      0
                    • PeteC12

                      Ecommerce Site homepage , Is it okay to have Links as H2 Tags as that is relevant to the page ?

                      Hi All, I have a Rental site and I am bit confused with how best do my H Tags on my homepage I know the H1 is the most important, Then H2 Tags and so on.. and that these tags should really be titles for content. However, I have a few categories (links) on my homepage so I am wondering if I could put these as H2 Tags given that it is relevant to the page . H3 Tags will my News and Guides etc , H4 Tags will the whats on the footer. I am attached a made up screenshot of what I propose for my homepage  if someone could please  give it a quick look ,  it would be very much appreciated. I have looked at what some competitors do a lot of them don't seem to have h2's etc but I know it's an important factor for rankings etc. Many thanks Pete dJSFQwI

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 31, 2014, 1:33 PM | PeteC12
                      0
                    • s_EOgi_Bear

                      Wordpress Tag Pages - NoIndex?

                      Hi there. I am using Yoast Wordpress Plugin. I just wonder if any test have been done around the effects of Index vs Noindex for Tag Pages? ( like when tagging a word relevant to an article ) Thanks 🙂 Martin

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 28, 2015, 2:09 AM | s_EOgi_Bear
                      0
                    • Rubix

                      Do you add 404 page into robot file or just add no index tag?

                      Hi, got different opinion on this so i wanted to double check with your comment is. We've got /404.html page and I was wondering if you would add this page to robot text so it wouldn't be indexed or would you just add no index tag? What would be the best approach? Thanks!

                      Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 13, 2013, 2:39 PM | Rubix
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.