Google indexing “page/2/”, “page/3/” – how to prevent it?

  • Resolved beckyrbsn

    (@beckyrbsn)


    3 years, 11 months ago

    Hi Yoast Team,

    I just noticed Google has randomly indexed what appears to be the pagination pages of my site (from the homepage). When I search for the name of the site, it shows the following in Google search results:

    1st result: https://www.domain.com/ >> this is what I expect

    2nd result: https://www.domain.com/page/3/ >> this is not what I expect

    I gathered I should not tell Google to remove the “/page/#/” URLs, either through noindex or from Search Console, because then some posts are at risk from not being crawled(?).

    Is there any other way in the Yoast setup that I can prevent Google from picking up this page and others?

    If it helps:
    – homepage is built using WPBakery visual composer
    – homepage set as static, and posts page set as “empty” page
    – checked Yoast’s XML sitemap and those pages don’t appear in it (which is good).
    – on my actual homepage, the site title is defined (partly) manually: “Site Title” Yoast variable + [Manually entered text]
    – on /page/3/, the site title shown in Google matches my “default” Yoast settings for Page search appearance (even though in theory it’s still my homepage).
    – /page/3/ appears to be the URL on the “Load More” button (bottom of page).

    Thx,
    Becky

    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by beckyrbsn.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by beckyrbsn.
    • This topic was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by beckyrbsn.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
  • Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    Hello Becky,

    Thanks for reaching out.

    We understand that Google has indexed your paginated archives and you want a setting in the Yoast SEO plugin to reverse that.

    Unfortunately, there is no option in the plugin to add noindex to paginated archives. According to Google, adding noindex on a page long-term will lead to them not following links on that page. This, you have also rightly mentioned. More recent statements imply that if a page isn’t in their index, the links on it and from it can’t be evaluated at all. So with that, we do not recommend adding noindex to page 2 and further on paginated archives.

    However, if you still want to noindex paginated archive pages, you can use the filter located here. You or your developer can customize it depending on your needs.

    You may also get in touch with your theme developer for further guidance.

    Thread Starter beckyrbsn

    (@beckyrbsn)

    Hi @maybellyne – thanks for the response. May I ask if this is a common situation/question, and if you know of any other way to get around it without risking the noindex option?

    I’d be surprised if many other “blog” type sites do not have the same challenge!

    Noticed also in Search Console, that Google-selected canonical URL is different to user-selected URL.

    I have contacted theme dev on this too.

    Thanks.

    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    Hello Becky,

    It’s not so common. There is no other option than the filter provided.

    Thanks.

    Thread Starter beckyrbsn

    (@beckyrbsn)

    Hi @maybellyne,

    I’m thinking to let Google better understand where the canonical URL is. Is there any way I can edit the canonical URLs for /page/2, /page/3/ etc?

    In my source code, I don’t see any of the tags as specified in the below articles:

    https://yoast.com/features/canonical-url-tags/

    https://yoast.com/help/canonical-urls-in-wordpress-seo/#howtochange

    When you have lots of posts, your categories, tag pages and other ‘archives’ are sometimes split up into multiple pages. In these cases, we follow SEO best practice by making sure that the canonical URL tag reflects the current page in the paginated series.

    Looking for a way to check if Yoast is handling it properly on my site.

    Thank you.

    Plugin Support Maybellyne

    (@maybellyne)

    We understand that you want to edit the canonical URLs for your paginated archives. These are treated differently from single posts/pages. Therefore, the tutorial in https://yoast.com/help/canonical-urls-in-wordpress-seo/#howtochange does not apply.

    You can follow https://yoast.com/help/canonical-urls-in-wordpress-seo/#archives instead. Indeed, the Yoast SEO plugin also adds tags to the paginated archive series. You can learn more in https://yoast.com/help/is-the-plugin-compatible-with-paginated-content/

    @beckyrbsn,

    Please refer to this forum topic to solve your issue.

    @maybellyne,

    It would be great if Yoast can add the noted solution to your knowledgebase and/or issue a blog on the subject.

    Cheers!

    Plugin Support devnihil

    (@devnihil)

    @jetxpert Thanks for your solutions, and we’ll certainly forward your recommendation.

    Thread Starter beckyrbsn

    (@beckyrbsn)

    @jetxpert thanks!

    Plugin Support devnihil

    (@devnihil)

    @beckyrbsn Can you please confirm whether @jetxpert ‘s solution resolved the issue for you?

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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