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.
Accidently added a nofollow, noindex tag and then...
-
Hey guys,
My first post here and ironically highlights a ridiculously stupid mistake!
Ok, here's the deal...
I started building links to one of my new page on a fairly good, old site (DA = >35).
Before starting to build links, I added fresh new content, and while doing that, I accidentally added a "nofollow" and "noindex" tag to the page! Guess what, google DID de-index the page !
So the questions is (and YES, I did change the meta tags):
-
Will google re-index the page with some good linking?
-
Will it treat the page as a new, fresh page even though it was present for over a year?
-
I had already started link building to that page, and now technically the links are pointing to a page that does not exist in the index, so once it does get re-indexed, will Google FLAG it as having too many links?
-
Would I be ranking it as a new page? Will its previous ranking (for very few keywords) will come back?
Thanks and Regards,
Amod
-
-
Totally not an issue to be concerned about on any of those questions you asked - just remove the noindex tag and submit the URL(s) in WMT for Google to respider those specific pages faster, you'll be back up and running in no time.
-
Hi Amod,
I have also experienced this, our developer accidentally placed this "nofollow" tag across the entire website.
-
Yes, just get Google to fetch your pages via webmaster tools.
-
No.
-
No.
4). Rankings will come back as Matt has pointed out, no need to worry.
-
-
Hi Amod,
There are my thoughts:
1. Yes, of course Google we re-index the page. With or without 'good linking', next time it crawls the page (and it'll do that regardless of any new link building activity) it will see the tag has changed and include it in the index again.
2. No, it will be aware of the age of the page.
3. No, Google has already indexed all of the links pointing to your site. It won't suddenly forget that just because you added a noindex to your page. They're 2 seperate entities.
4. The rankings will come back, but it will take time. I've read blog posts about this in the past, perhaps someone else here could give an estimate? I'd imagine it depends on the strength of the page.
Thanks,
Matt
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
-
Translating meta tags using WPML and AIO SEO
Having a heck of a time finding info on this one... We're working on a multilingual website which uses WPML. I've used the All in One SEO plugin to customize meta data (title, description, etc). These strings do not appear in the list of translations in WPML. Does anyone have any experience with this setup? How do you enable WPML to translate meta data set via the AIO plugin? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jonmc0 -
Is single H1 tag still best practice?
Hi Guys, Is having a single h1 tag still best practice for SEO? Guessing multiple h1 tags dilute the value of the tag and keywords within the tag. Thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Title tag: Long tail words or keyword dilution?
Hi all, I am a newbie to SEO. Lately, I have been struggling to optimize my title tag. Ones say that we should have long tail words in title tags because long tail words improve click through rate and generate quality leads. On the other hand, ones say that putting other words in the title tag will dilute the main keyword that my page ranks for. Do keywords really dilute each other in the title tags? I am really confused. Let me give this an example: Web Design Services | Company Name Web Design Services with Conversion Focused | Company Name Which one would you prefer and why? Thank you. 😄 Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raymondlee0 -
Meta Robot Tag:Index, Follow, Noodp, Noydir
When should "Noodp" and "Noydir" meta robot tag be used? I have hundreds or URLs for real estate listings on my site that simply use "Index", Follow" without using Noodp and Noydir. Should the listing pages use these Noodp and Noydr also? All major landing pages use Index, Follow, Noodp, Noydir. Is this the best setting in terms of ranking and SEO. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Internal Links - Dofollow or Nofollow and why?
Hey there Mozzers, I am a question about internal links. If I am writing a article about something and want to link to another one of my articles inside my blog, do i have to make that link nofollow or dofollow? If possible tell me why also. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?
Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Wildcard Redirects & Canonical Tags
I have an interesting situation. Current URLs Example1: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NakulGoyal
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-4567.html Current URLs Example2: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10.html New URL:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789.html Current URLs Example3: www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1.html
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5-1-1.html Canonical on All Above URLs:
www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html New URL:
www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html I want to make sure all variations of the above URL redirect to the new URLs. However, as you see in Example 3, we are dealing with variables that are passed on. (+5 in this case). Question 1: What wildcard 301 redirect / regular expression can I use to tackle these ? Question 2: If we redirect www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-1234+10+5.html to www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html and www.domain.com/red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html contains the canonical tag www.domain.com/american-red-widgets-cid-6789+5.html, any concerns or red flags here ?0 -
Should I nofollow the main navigation on certain pages?
We have several large Ecommerce sites with hundreds of links on each page. I have been trying to think of ways to focus our internal linking to increase certain pages relevancy. My thought was to put nofollow in the main navigation (since there are hundreds of links there controlled by dropdowns) and only follow the links on each page for the products we are selling and promoting (15-20 links). I would still be using a sitemap that includes the links. Is this a terrible idea? if a link is nofollowed in the main navigation does that still count as the one mention for google if it points to the same page that a normal link points too that is in the content of the page? since all of the main navigation is the same on every page of the website would it be good to only put nofollow on the subpages/subsections and leave the home page navigation alone (that would allow the spiders to crawl all of those links on the home page but not crawl those same links on the subsections where I could then focus the linking).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bigtimeseo0