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 long for google to de-index old pages on my site?
-
I launched my redesigned website 4 days ago. I submitted a new site map, as well as submitted it to index in search console (google webmasters).
I see that when I google my site, My new open graph settings are coming up correct.
Still, a lot of my old site pages are definitely still indexed within google. How long will it take for google to drop off or "de-index" my old pages?
Due to the way I restructured my website, a lot of the items are no longer available on my site. This is on purpose. I'm a graphic designer, and with the new change, I removed many old portfolio items, as well as any references to web design since I will no longer offering that service.
My site is the following:
http://studio35design.com -
Awesome! Thanks Bas. Thats a great idea. I'll give it a shot.
-
Hi Ruben,
Have you tried deleting these old pages from the index at Google Webmaster Tools?
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/url-removal
You can only delete them temporarily but it might overlap the process of actually deleting the pages that you have already set in motion by uploading a new site map.
I did that about a week ago and the effect was noticeable within a couple of days.
Bas
-
Hi Martijn. Thanks for your response. My primary concern are the links that appear below my main link in the SERP. See screenshot. Half out those are no longer working. Sure, they redirect to a 301, but its still messy.
-
Hi Mark. Thanks for your response. All links as far as I can tell now have 301s. I'm sure there might be the odd page out that I forgot, but I'll be monitoring search console for errors.
Your suggestion about the specific page to redirect web design traffic is a good one. I'll think about it.
-
Hi,
Yes this really depends on how frequently Google crawls your site. Do these pages now lead to a 404 error? If yes I would suggest 301 redirecting them to other pages on your site. See this useful Moz blog about 301 redirects: https://cloudz.click/blog/heres-how-to-keep-301-redirects-from-ruining-your-seo
You also mentioned that you don’t offer the web design service anymore. If you still gets some traffic there you could make a specific page. Here you can state that you don’t offer web design but maybe some other relevant services.
-
This can take a very long time sometimes, for bigger sites I could see this take months with smaller sites it depends on the frequency and the crawl rate that Google visits your site. If Google is not very active on your site because the content doesn't really relate to something that is updated often then Google might decide not to come back too often to save their own servers and find other content elsewhere on the web.
In your case I would focus on making sure that the new site and structure are working flawless and less about de-indexing the old pages. I can't imagine that they still receive a ton of traffic. Without any doubt is 4 days still very early for Google to pick up the changes.
Hope this helps!?
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
-
A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?
Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Best and easiest Google Depersonalization method
Hello, Moz hasn't written anything about depersonalization for years. This article has methods, but I don't know if they are valid anymore. What's an easy, effective way to depersonalize Google search these days? I would just log out of Google, but that shows different ranking results than Moz's rank tracker for one of our main keywords, so I don't know if that method is correct. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | BobGW0 -
Google & Tabbed Content
Hi I wondered if anyone had a case study or more info on how Google treats content under tabs? We have an ecommerce site & I know it is common to put product content under tabs, but will Google ignore this? Becky
Algorithm Updates | | BeckyKey1 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Does Google ACTUALLY ding you for having long Meta Titles? Or do studies just suggest a lower CTR?
I do SEO in an agency and have many clients. I always get the question, "Will that hurt my SEO?". When it comes to Meta Title and even Meta Description Length, I understand Google will truncate it which may result in a lower CTR, but does it actually hurt your ranking? I see in many cases Google will find keywords within a long meta description and display those and then in other cases it will simply truncate it. Is Google doing whatever they want willy-nilly or is there data behind this? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | Bevelwise0 -
Google is forcing a 301 by truncating our URLs
Just recently we noticed that google has indexed truncated urls for many of our pages that get 301'd to the correct page. For example, we have:
Algorithm Updates | | mmac
http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html as the url linked everywhere and that's the only version of that page that we use. Google somehow figured out that it would still go to the right place via 301 if they removed the html filename from the end, so they indexed just: http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/ The 301 is not new. It used to 404, but (probably 5 years ago) we saw a few links come in with the html file missing on similar urls so we decided to 301 them instead thinking it would be helpful. We've preferred the longer version because it has the name in it and users that pay attention to the url can feel more confident they are going to the right place. We've always used the full (longer) url and google used to index them all that way, but just recently we noticed about 1/2 of our urls have been converted to the shorter version in the SERPs. These shortened urls take the user to the right page via 301, so it isn't a case of the user landing in the wrong place, but over 100,000 301s may not be so good. You can look at: site:www.eventective.com/usa/massachusetts/bedford/ and you'll noticed all of the urls to businesses at the top of the listings go to the truncated version, but toward the bottom they have the full url. Can you explain to me why google would index a page that is 301'd to the right page and has been for years? I have a lot of thoughts on why they would do this and even more ideas on how we could build our urls better, but I'd really like to hear from some people that aren't quite as close to it as I am. One small detail that shouldn't affect this, but I'll mention it anyway, is that we have a mobile site with the same url pattern. http://m.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html We did not have the proper 301 in place on the m. site until the end of last week. I'm pretty sure it will be asked, so I'll also mention we have the rel=alternate/canonical set up between the www and m sites. I'm also interested in any thoughts on how this may affect rankings since we seem to have been hit by something toward the end of last week. Don't hesitate to mention anything else you see that may have triggered whatever may have hit us. Thank you,
Michael0 -
Is a slash just as good as buying a country specific domain? .com/de vs .de
I guess this question comes in a few parts: 1. Would Google read a 2-letter country code that is after the domain name (after the slash) and recognize it as a location (targeting that country)? Or does is just read it as it would a word. eg. www.marketing.com/de for a microsite for the Germans www.marketing.com/fr for a microsite for the French Or would it read the de and fr as words (not locations) in the url. In which case, would it have worse SEO (as people would tend to search "marketing france" not "marketing fr")? 2. Which is better for SEO and rankings? Separate country specific domains: www.marketing.de and www.marketing.fr OR the use of subfolders in the url: www.marketing.com/de and www.marketing.com/fr
Algorithm Updates | | richardstrange0 -
How long does a news article stay on Google's 'News' section on the SERP?
Our site is recognised as a news source for our niche - was just wondering if anyone had any idea how long the news story stays on the front page of the SERP once Google picks it up?
Algorithm Updates | | DanHill0