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

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

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • 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
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