Should We Remove Content Through Google Webmaster Tools?
-
We recently collapsed an existing site in order to relaunch it as a much smaller, much higher quality site. In doing so, we're facing some indexation issues whereas a large number of our old URLs (301'd where appropriate) still show up for a site:domain search.
Some relevant notes:
- We transitioned the site from SiteCore to Wordpress to allow for greater flexibility
- The Wordpress CMS went live on 11/22 (same legacy content, but in the new CMS)
- The new content (and all required 301s) went live on 12/2
- The site's total number of URLS is currently at 173 (confirmed by ScreamingFrog)
- As of posting this question, a site:domain search shows 6,110 results
While it's a very large manual effort, is there any reason to believe that submitting removal requests through Google Webmaster Tools would be helpful?
We simply want all indexation of old pages and content to disappear - and for Google to treat the site as a new site on the same old domain.
-
As Donna pointed out, the 'delay' tween what you expect time-line wise and what Google can 'do' is often longer than anyone would wish........
-
I agree with Ray-pp. It can take some time - weeks to months - for Google to catch up with the changes made to the site. Sounds like something else might be going on causing you to have so many extra pages indexed. Can you explain the cause of having ~5,000 extra pages indexed? When did they first start to appear? Are you sure you've configured your wordpress implementation to minimize unnecessary duplicates?
-
If you have implemented 301 redirects properly, then the old URLs (the ones redirecting to the new site) will naturally drop from the search engines as Google deems appropriate. There are a number of factors that influence when a page gets deindexed, such as the crawl rate for a website and how many links it may have.
If you really desire the pages to be removed, then as you've suggested you can ask for their removal from GWT. However, there is no harm is allowing them to stay indexed and waiting for Google to adjust appropriately.
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 is Google supposed to return when you submit an image URL into Fetch as Google? Is a few lines of readable text followed by lots of unreadable text normal?
I am seeing something like this (Is this normal?): HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Autoboof
Server: nginx
Content-Type: image/jpeg
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Last-Modified: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:23:04 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=1209600
Expires: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 15:23:55 GMT
X-Request-ID: v-8dd8519e-8a1a-11e5-a595-12313d18b975
X-AH-Environment: prod
Content-Length: 25505
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:24:11 GMT
X-Varnish: 863978362 863966195
Age: 16
Via: 1.1 varnish
Connection: keep-alive
X-Cache: HIT
X-Cache-Hits: 1 ����•JFIF••••��;CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v80), quality = 75
��C•••••••••• •
••
••••••••• $.' ",#(7),01444'9=82<.342��C• ••••
•2!!22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222��•••••v••"••••••��••••••••••••••••
•���•••••••••••••}•••••••!1A••Qa•"q•2���•#B��•R��$3br�
••••%&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz���������������������������������������������������������������������������•••••••••••••••••••
•���••••••••••••••w••••••!1••AQ•aq•"2�••B���� #3R�•br�0 -
Google Webmaster Tools Set-up
Hello! My URL of www.morganlindsayphotography.com I have set up in google webmaster tools. I also have added the instance of morganlindsayphotography.com (non www version) My blog is located at www.morganlindsayphotography.com/blog/ My question is do I add a sitemap to the "<a>www.morganlindsayphotography.com/blog/</a>" as well as the <a>www.morganlindsayphotography.com</a> ? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 393morgan0 -
The best tool
Hi friends !! I have a huge question . Which is the best tool for SEO? I am using a lot of tools but I would like to know more ways to position my website in the top . I hope that you can help me! Regards , Carlos Zambrana
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CarlosZambrana1 -
Do Google webmaster tool and other backlinks analysis tool ignore the disavow data ?
Hello, Lots of site i have disavow so if i download backlinks of my site from google webmaster so google will ignore the disavow data and give me backlinks other than disavow data? Same if i use backlink tools like moz or semrush or ahref etc for checking backlinks of my site or competitor site so will this tool ignore the disavow data? If such tools not aware of disavow then it is worthless to check competitor links? Thanks! dev
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | devdan0 -
Best way to permanently remove URLs from the Google index?
We have several subdomains we use for testing applications. Even if we block with robots.txt, these subdomains still appear to get indexed (though they show as blocked by robots.txt. I've claimed these subdomains and requested permanent removal, but it appears that after a certain time period (6 months)? Google will re-index (and mark them as blocked by robots.txt). What is the best way to permanently remove these from the index? We can't use login to block because our clients want to be able to view these applications without needing to login. What is the next best solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
How to remove wrong crawled domain from Google index
Hello, I'm running a Wordpress multisite. When I create a new site for a client, we do the preparation using the multisite domain address (ex: cameleor.cobea.be). To keep the site protected we use the "multisite privacy" plugin which allows us to restrict the site to admin only. When site is ready we a domain mapping plugin to redirect the client domain to the multisite (ex: cameleor.com). Unfortunately, recently we switched our domain mappin plugin by another one and 2 sites got crawled by Google on their multsite address as well. So now when you type "cameleor" in Google you get the 2 domains in SERPS (see here http://screencast.com/t/0wzdrYSR). It's been 2 weeks or so that we fixed the plugin issue and now cameleor.cobea.be is redirected to the correct address cameleor.com. My question: how can I get rid of those wrong urls ? I can't remove it in Google Webmaster Tools as they belong to another domain (cf. cameleor.cobea.be for which I can't get authenticated) and I wonder if will ever get removed from index as they still redirect to something (no error to the eyes of Google)..? Does anybody has an idea or a solution for me please ? Thank you very much for your help Regards Jean-Louis
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JeanlouisSEO0 -
Can anyone explain sudden drop in impressions. Webmaster tools screenshot attached.
I posted here recently concerned about a drop in rankings. I'm yet to figure out what happened and thought I'd post a screenshot of the loss of impressions to see if anyone can help? jeZO1r1.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
Google Translate for Unique Content
We are considering using the Google Translation tool to translate customer reviews into various languages for publication as indexable content both for users and for search engine long tail visibility and rankings. Does anyone have any experience, insights or caveats to share?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edreamsbcn0