GWT URL Removal Tool Risky to Use for Duplicate Pages?
-
I was planning to remove lots of URL's via GWT that are highly duplicate alike pages (similar pages exist on other websites across the web). However, this Google article had me a bit concerned: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1269119?hl=en
I already have "noindex, follow" on the pages I want to remove from the index, but Google seems to take ages to remove pages from index, which appear to drag down unique content pages from my site.
-
Hi
I have used the URL removal tool in the past to remove URLs with success - as we know it helps speed things up. What you have done is right and if you are patient Google will start removing each page as it crawls it again. You might find this confirmation from Google reassuring in your situation - https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93710?hl=en
Reading the article you posted of when not to use the tool I can't see that your pages fall into any of these categories - but either way I personally can't see using it causing an issue to be honest but its your call.
-
adding "nofollow" as well makes it even easier to get out of the index?
-
Last time I used URL removal in GWT was a long time ago and at that time the URL will not get out of the index for ever but for 90 days only and after that it will come again.
The better idea in any case is to use no index, no follow tag on the pages that you want out from the Google’s index!
Hope this helps!
-
issue with having pages that are similar to pages on other websites is the ratio of unique vs duplicate content is low and that can drag down other more unique pages ranking. The pages I have without much unique content is what users want: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/oahu/honolulu/hawaii-kai-homes/ but since content isn't unique I - unfortunately - need to noindex those pages and instead rank for this type of page: http://www.honoluluhi5.com/hawaii-kai-homes-real-estate/
When a user is looking for "….for sale" type keyword they want that first URL. Not the 2nd URL with pictures and video and writing. The "noindex, follow" is on the 1st URL, but still indexed after 1 month. I want to get de-indexed and I am trying to establish the risk associated with using that GWT tool - based on the article where G seems to indicate one shouldn't so easily use that tool. Conclusion is probably I have to be patient and wait for G to noindex those pages of mine. I look forward to the day G's algorithm can see the layout of a page and understand the value for users, even though it lacks unique content….
-
There's really no problem with having pages on your site having content that can be seen on other sites. Since you have noindexed them already, it shouldn't be a problem.
If they aren't really getting any traffic for you or aren't really bringing in anything that helps the site overall, then just take them off.
Focus on your new and existing content.
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
-
Remove unwanted web pages
Hi All, I have a number of web pages that yield little or no traffic. I have analysed the traffic data in both normal SERPs and Google Adwords over a year. All low traffic pages rank on the first page.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
Redirecting these poor performing pages to the main content page would provide the user with a richer experience. Why do I need to remove these pages?
Cost, time and duplicate content issues is causing untold problems.
Removing the existance of the low/no traffic pages will allow me to provide fresh content on the main content pages. Question
Each main content page has about 20 low/no traffic pages associated with it.
I have about 30 instances of the main page scenario. Would carrying htacces page redirects hurt my ranking or worse? Regards Mark0 -
Will Canonical tag on parameter URLs remove those URL's from Index, and preserve link juice?
My website has 43,000 pages indexed by Google. Almost all of these pages are URLs that have parameters in them, creating duplicate content. I have external links pointing to those URLs that have parameters in them. If I add the canonical tag to these parameter URLs, will that remove those pages from the Google index, or do I need to do something more to remove those pages from the index? Ex: www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/?TID=shkfsvdi_dc%ficol (has link pointing here)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | partnerf
www.website.com/boats/show/tuna-fishing/ (canonical URL) Thanks for your help. Rob0 -
An affiliate website uses datafeeds and around 65.000 products are deleted in the new feeds. What are the best practises to do with the product pages? 404 ALL pages, 301 Redirect to the upper catagory?
Note: All product pages are on INDEX FOLLOW. Right now this is happening with the deleted productpages: 1. When a product is removed from the new datafeed the pages stay online and are showing simliar products for 3 months. The productpages are removed from the categorie pages but not from the sitemap! 2. Pages receiving more than 3 hits after the first 3 months keep on existing and also in the sitemaps. These pages are not shown in the categories. 3. Pages from deleted datafeeds that receive 2 hits or less, are getting a 301 redirect to the upper categorie for again 3 months 4. Afther the last 3 months all 301 redirects are getting a customized 404 page with similar products. Any suggestions of Comments about this structure? 🙂 Issues to think about:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox
- The amount of 404 pages Google is warning about in GWT
- Right now all productpages are indexed
- Use as much value as possible in the right way from all pages
- Usability for the visitor Extra info about the near future: Beceause of the duplicate content issue with datafeeds we are going to put all product pages on NOINDEX, FOLLOW and focus only on category and subcategory pages.0 -
Duplicate on page content - Product descriptions - Should I Meta NOINDEX?
Hi, Our e-commerce store has a lot of product descriptions duplicated - Some of them are default manufacturer descriptions, some are descriptions because the colour of the product varies - so essentially the same product, just different colour. It is going to take a lot of man hours to get the unique content in place - would a Meta No INDEX on the dupe pages be ok for the moment and then I can lift that once we have unique content in place? I can't 301 or canonicalize these pages, as they are actually individual products in their own right, just dupe descriptions. Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20101 -
Removing a Page From Google index
We accidentally generated some pages on our site that ended up getting indexed by google. We have corrected the issue on the site and we 404 all of those pages. Should we manually delete the extra pages from Google's index or should we just let Google figure out that they are 404'd? What the best practice here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles0 -
Does using robots.txt to block pages decrease search traffic?
I know you can use robots.txt to tell search engines not to spend their resources crawling certain pages. So, if you have a section of your website that is good content, but is never updated, and you want the search engines to index new content faster, would it work to block the good, un-changed content with robots.txt? Would this content loose any search traffic if it were blocked by robots.txt? Does anyone have any available case studies?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Page URL Issue
Hey Friend, I am having sort of a problem. I currently have a subpage with the url of: /musclecars/ I also have a subpage at /muscle-cars/muscle-car-restoration.html Obviously my main url is not listed here. My problem is I am trying to rank for the term Muscle Cars but the first URL does not have the keywords seperated so I rank no where. If I type MuscleCars into google I rank though (but nobody types the keyword in like that). So my question is can I create muscle-cars.mydomainname.com and rank well with that? Or is it better to just use mydomainname.com/muscle-cars/ even though that second term I am ranking for already has that in its url?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | shandaman0 -
Pop Up Pages Being Indexed, Seen As Duplicate Content
I offer users the opportunity to email and embed images from my website. (See this page http://www.andertoons.com/cartoon/6246/ and look under the large image for "Email to a Friend" and "Get Embed HTML" links.) But I'm seeing the ensuing pop-up pages (Ex: http://www.andertoons.com/embed/5231/?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=370&width=700&modal=true and http://www.andertoons.com/email/6246/?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=432&width=700&modal=true) showing up in Google. Even worse, I think they're seen as duplicate content. How should I deal with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andertoons0