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.
How to properly remove pages and a category from Google's index
-
I want to remove this category http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ and all the pages in that category (e.g. http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/7386.html ) from Google's index.
I used the following string in the "Reomval URS" section in Google Webmaster Tools:
http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/*
is that correct or I better use http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ ?
Thanks in advance.
-
Thanks for your replies guys. Now I know how to proceed.
-
In addition I would put the "No Index" meta attribute in the pages.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93710
-
It sounds like you want to de-index them.
Go into your robots.txt and disallow Google from the category..
It will look something like this:
User-agent: googlebot or *
Disallow: /web-design-news-all/
-
Are you removing the pages or just trying to de-index them? If you're trying to remove them, make sure the old pages return a 404 so they can't be restored to the index. If you're trying to remove them, make sure they are excluded by robots.txt or meta tag.
Here's the WMT Help page on the topic
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1663427
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
-
Category pages, should I noindex them?
Hi there, I have a question about my blog that I hope you guys can answer. Should I no index the category and tag pages of my blog? I understand they are considered as duplicate content, but what if I try to work the keyword of that category? What would you do? I am looking forward to reading your answers 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | lucywrites0 -
Will it upset Google if I aggregate product page reviews up into a product category page?
We have reviews on our product pages and we are considering averaging those reviews out and putting them on specific category pages in order for the average product ratings to be displayed in search results. Each averaged category review would be only for the products within it's category, and all reviews are from users of the site, no 3rd party reviews. For example, averaging the reviews from all of our boxes products pages, and listing that average review on the boxes category page. My question is, will this be doing anything wrong in the eyes of Google, and if so how so? -Derick
On-Page Optimization | | Deluxe0 -
Google is indexing urls with parameters despite canonical
Hello Moz, Google is indexing lots of urls despite the canonical in my site. Those urls are linked all over the site with parameters like ?, and looks like Google is indexing them despite de canonical. Is Google deciding to index those urls because they are linked all over the site? The canonical tag is well implemented.
On-Page Optimization | | Red_educativa0 -
What to do with removed pages and 404 error
I recently removed about 600 'thin' pages from my site which are now showing as 404 errors in WMT as expected. As I understand it I should just let these pages 404 and eventually they'll be dropped from the index. There are no inbound links pointing at them so I don't need to 301 them. They keep appearing in WMT as 404's though so should I just 'mark as fixed' until they stop appearing? Is there any other action I need to take?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Schema and Rich Snippets What's the difference?
Sorry if this is a daft question but... what is the difference between Rich snippets and Schema markup? Are they one and the same? They seem to be used interchaneably and I'm confused. If someone could give a brief sentence or two about the differences between them that would be great. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | AL123al1 -
Blocking Subdomain from Google Crawl and Index
Hey everybody, how is it going? I have a simple question, that i need answered. I have a main domain, lets call it domain.com. Recently our company will launch a series of promotions for which we will use cname subdomains, i.e try.domain.com, or buy.domain.com. They will serve a commercial objective, nothing more. What is the best way to block such domains from being indexed in Google, also from counting as a subdomain from the domain.com. Robots.txt, No-follow, etc? Hope to hear from you, Best Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | JesusD3 -
Does a page's url have any weight in Google rankings?
I'm sure this question must have been asked before but I can't find it. I'm assuming that the title tag is far more important than the page's url. Is that correct? Does the url have any relevance to Google?
On-Page Optimization | | rdreich490 -
Category Pages with Sub-Categories
The image will explain it all... Each category page starts on the subject of the first sub-category page. This happens twice (well actually 3 times since this section of the site is called showroom and it starts on the tab mowers). Is this a terrible approach? If so, how could a site like this be better navigation-ally organized. cat-subcat.png
On-Page Optimization | | drewschmaltz0