Durango Posted February 7, 2019 Posted February 7, 2019 Hi @bfarber @Matt This a an urgent SEO problem We detected that multiple urls like this : community.com?app=core&module=system§ion=notifications&do=followers&follow_app=forums&follow_area=topic&follow_id=11671 community.com/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=notifications&do=followers&follow_app=videos&follow_area=video&follow_id=161. community.com/index.php?app=core&module=system&controller=notifications&do=followers&follow_app=forums&follow_area=topic&follow_id=11219 community.com/index.php?do=findComment&comment=11756 etc etc are indexed its a great risk for Google Panda algorithms There should be a noindex on those pages How can we exclude those urls (thousands and thousands) from crawl & indexation tx
Management Charles Posted February 7, 2019 Management Posted February 7, 2019 I'm not sure it's an "urgent SEO issue" but we can add a nofollow there (or you can in your own theme) 🙂 We had an SEO audit in 4.4 from some well-known SEO processionals and they did not flag this as a priority problem but there's always small things we can do.
opentype Posted February 7, 2019 Posted February 7, 2019 Just hide the links from guests altogether. I was sure (but wrong) this is already the case, since that came up many times before.
Durango Posted February 7, 2019 Author Posted February 7, 2019 Hi Charles We are SEO too Nofollow on those links would be nice tx 🙂 For the problem i mentionned, the point is to avoid to give Google thousands of pages with thin or inexistant content to crawl AND index this could result in SEO penalty (Google Panda algorithms) You also want to avoid to spend your crawl budget on those pages So we have to make sure those pages wont be crawled AND wont get indexed (noindex) Edit : Tx @opentype nice plugin from Adriano but we still have thousands of similar links indexed and we need to remove them from Google, one solution would work : (and solve the problem for all) : add a NOINDEX in those pages code (other solution would be to send 403 or 404 error code to guests)
opentype Posted February 7, 2019 Posted February 7, 2019 4 minutes ago, Durango said: but we still have thousands of links like this indexed and we need to remove them from Google Says who? It’s the kind of stuff Google usually puts in the “crawled, but currently not indexed bin” now. I do not buy the claim of “severe SEO penalties” so easily.
Management Matt Posted February 7, 2019 Management Posted February 7, 2019 Yes, Google is smart enough to figure it out. It's not going to punish you for having useful UI elements on the page.
Durango Posted February 9, 2019 Author Posted February 9, 2019 Hi @opentype : say most SEO Google himself says so : https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769 If you have thin content pages, you are advised not to let them be indexed, otherwise it could harm your SEO If you have only 4 or 5, not a problem, but if you have hundreds or thousands, it starts to be a problem Large number of thin content pages on a website are bad for the whole website It also has a negative impact on your crawl budget : you want googlebots to crawl your quality pages, not the others @Matt : Unfortunately Google is not always able to figure it out, otherwise there would be no need to do SEO on high quality websites 🙂 the point is to avoid UX/UI to penalize SEO in this case : prevent those links to be crawled and indexed is the solution For instance, for invisioncommunity.com a quick check for one type of those links gives +700 indexed urls that should not : https://www.google.com/search?biw=1920&bih=979&ei=UAxfXKiODMONlwTmi7bYCw&q=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Finvisioncommunity.com+inurl%3Afollow_area&oq=site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Finvisioncommunity.com+inurl%3Afollow_area&gs_l=psy-ab.12...0.0..2244...0.0..0.0.0.......0......gws-wiz.-G-JueZ69JI
opentype Posted February 9, 2019 Posted February 9, 2019 11 minutes ago, Durango said: Hi @opentype : say most SEO Google himself says so If you have thin content pages, you are advised not to let them be indexed, otherwise it could harm your SEO Sorry, I should have been clearer. The point of my question was to ask you to substantiate your claim, not add more claims without any demonstration.
Durango Posted February 9, 2019 Author Posted February 9, 2019 @opentype : i tried to substantiate my claims but if you need more, i would suggest you read about this problem on SEO professionnal websites like this article : https://yoast.com/fix-low-quality-pages/
opentype Posted February 9, 2019 Posted February 9, 2019 Well, we finally got 1(!) article. Not “most SEO”, not “Google himself say so”, not “severe SEO penalty” … By the way: it’s not that I don’t keep track of these things or even disagree with your suggestion. I suggested to just hide these pages from guests by default in the stock theme. Doesn’t even need a setting. Guests don’t need to see such member details. Crawler don’t need to crawl that. But as I said: I just don’t buy claims so easily and no one should. Especially not in the field of SEO. 😉
Durango Posted February 9, 2019 Author Posted February 9, 2019 @opentype i gave you one article explaining the problem, but there are thousands, just help yourself here i understand you are not SEO yourself, but we are a SEO agency and i can assure you most SEO would advise to remove hundreds (thousands) of thin content pages from index This can result into severe SEO penalties related to Google Panda algorithm the plugin from Adriano solves part of the problem (about this kind of indexed pages) but we are still investigating with our crawlers to inspect large invision communities (including this one invisioncommunity.com) to detect all thin content & duplicate content pages, i will post soon about what we might have noticed
opentype Posted February 9, 2019 Posted February 9, 2019 40 minutes ago, Durango said: but we are a SEO agency Sorry, but that doesn’t mean anything. Everyone can open a SEO agency or call oneself a SEO expert. It’s not a protected professional title and there is no acknowledged degree in it. And you’re not even using the word SEO in the right way when you say stuff like “we are SEO” or “you are not SEO”. Not a good start to be trustworthy. 😉
Durango Posted February 10, 2019 Author Posted February 10, 2019 @opentype : English is not my first language, thank you for your understanding Indeed anyone can call oneself a SEO expert, "expert" is a wrong word in my opinion, there are no experts in SEO, (only Google could be considered as an expert of its own algorithm) there are SEO professionals, i would call a SEO professional someone who works full time in SEO with hundreds of clients since +5 years at least (10 years preferably) So as a SEO professional, i give my opinion and my recommendations based on my experience and my knowledge, i cannot prove it to you, as no one knows for sure the secrets of Google's algorithm, i can only redirect you to hundreds of SEO websites describing the problem i am pointing at, so please don't ask for proof, but those are my recommendations Have a nice day
asigno Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 @Durango There's an easy solution for this, setup Google Search Console and block the unwanted parameters from being indexed. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6080550?hl=en Quote No URLs: Use this option to tell Google not to crawl any URLs with a specific parameter. Google won't crawl any URLs containing the parameter you entered. For example, you can tell Google not to crawl URLs with parameters such as pricefrom and priceto (like http://www.examples.com/search?category=shoe&brand=nike&color=red&size=5&pricefrom=10&priceto=1000) to prevent unnecessary crawling of duplicated content already available from http://www.examples.com/search?category=shoe&brand=nike&color=red&size=5.
Durango Posted February 12, 2019 Author Posted February 12, 2019 Hi Tx @asigno as far as i know, this tells Google not to crawl, but it doesnt block Google indexing but thanks for the suggestion 🙂 it can be helpful in somes cases
beats23 Posted February 12, 2019 Posted February 12, 2019 Is it any page that is hidden from guest will not be indexed by google?
opentype Posted February 12, 2019 Posted February 12, 2019 11 minutes ago, beats23 said: Is it any page that is hidden from guest will not be indexed by google? yes, of course.
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.