Is there an easy way to hide one of your URL's on google search?, rather than redirecting?
-
We don't want to redirect to a different page, as some people still use it, we just don't want it to appear in search
-
One alternative to the "noindex" directives described below is to instead implement a canonical link tag to an alternative page you would prefer to be indexed for the same content. This would only be relevant if there was another very similar page. And, it would not be as strong of a directive as the "noindex", so I would not use canonical if it's extremely important that it not be indexed, like perhaps some sensitive info.
If you do go the NOINDEX route, then I would suggest, after you verify it has been properly implemented, to use the removal tool in Google Search Console. It technically isn't needed, if you have the NOINDEX directive, but it is usually recognized more quickly, and won't conflict. And then, once the page is out of Google's index, the next step (and only after it is removed and has the noindex tag), is to disallow crawling of that page in your robots.txt file.
-
Depending on the strength of the page, Google's indexing of the noindex tag can take between weeks and months to recognized.
-
Adding "noindex" meta tag or disallowing the page from within robots.txt will do the trick.
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
-
What's the best way to test Angular JS heavy page for SEO?
Hi Moz community, Our tech team has recently decided to try switching our product pages to be JavaScript dependent, this includes links, product descriptions and things like breadcrumbs in JS. Given my concerns, they will create a proof of concept with a few product pages in a QA environment so I can test the SEO implications of these changes. They are planning to use Angular 5 client side rendering without any prerendering. I suggested universal but they said the lift was too great, so we're testing to see if this works. I've read a lot of the articles in this guide to all things SEO and JS and am fairly confident in understanding when a site uses JS and how to troubleshoot to make sure everything is getting crawled and indexed. https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/javascript-seo-resources/ However, I am not sure I'll be able to test the QA pages since they aren't indexable and lives behind a login. I will be able to crawl the page using Screaming Frog but that's generally regarded as what a crawler should be able to crawl and not really what Googlebot will actually be able to crawl and index. Any thoughts on this, is this concern valid? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | znotes0 -
Search Console - Should I request to index redirected URL or Mark as fixed?
Hi all, Many blog posts used to be showing 404s when doing crawl tests and in search console (despite being there when visited.) I realized it was an issue with URL structure. It used to be example.com/post-name I've fixed the issue by changing the URL structure in Wordpress so that they now follow the structure of example.com/post-type/post-name According to sitemaps, Google has now indexed all posts in /post-type/post-name. My question is what to do with crawl errors in Search Console that are still there for example.com/postname. When I fetch, I get a redirect status (which is accurate). At this point should I request to index or mark as fixed? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | MouthyPR0 -
301 Redirects, Sitemaps and Indexing - How to hide redirected urls from search engines?
We have several pages in our site like this one, http://www.spectralink.com/solutions, which redirect to deeper page, http://www.spectralink.com/solutions/work-smarter-not-harder. Both urls are listed in the sitemap and both pages are being indexed. Should we remove those redirecting pages from the site map? Should we prevent the redirecting url from being indexed? If so, what's the best way to do that?
Technical SEO | | HeroDesignStudio0 -
My website is currently failing Google's mobile friendly test. What are my options?
What can I tell my developer so I pass this test? What will they need to develop A web mockup? Is there an easy code to implement?
Technical SEO | | pmull0 -
Wordpress New Category URL's
Were just about to redesign our site and put all the blogs over to the new site. Previously most blogs have been added to the uncategorised section of the blog and I'm now weighing up the benefit of sifting through all the blogs and changing them to relevant categories. From an SEO perspective would it be better to Leave them in their current category but start afresh with all new blogs by adding them to relevant categories? Work out which blogs should go in which new category and 301 all previous URL's to the new one. Obviously number one will take a lot more time than number two.
Technical SEO | | acs1110 -
Google indexing less url's then containded in my sitemap.xml
My sitemap.xml contains 3821 urls but Google (webmaster tools) indexes only 1544 urls. What may be the cause? There is no technical problem. Why does Google index less URLs then contained in my sitemap.xml?
Technical SEO | | Juist0 -
How do I use only one URL
my site can be reach by both www.site.com and site.com. How do I make it only use www?
Technical SEO | | Weblion0 -
Google Webmaster redirect vs 301 redirect
OK assuming a client's website has the right tracking script (hopefully analytics isn't effected by this issue), ... what happens if the htaccess file has a 301 redirect to the www-address, but within Google Webmaster Tools, the address chosen to crawl by Google is the non-www address? How will Google handle and which address takes precedence in this situation? _Cindy
Technical SEO | | CeCeBar0