Should I noindex millions of low-value bringing pages on my site?

15 replies
I have a real estate site with millions of pages. The category pages are the ones which are bringing the most amount of traffic and which are the ones I want to optimize. The individual property pages within the site are the ones Im planning to set as noidnex since they consume most of the crawl budget and bring me 0 organic traffic. Should I noindex them and add an internal nofollow from category pages to property page?

Thanks!
#bringing #lowvalue #millions #noindex #pages #site
Avatar of Unregistered
  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    Or use them for internal backlinking? It will help whatever pages you rank rank higher.



    Originally Posted by juli sanchez View Post

    I have a real estate site with millions of pages. The category pages are the ones which are bringing the most amount of traffic and which are the ones I want to optimize. The individual property pages within the site are the ones Im planning to set as noidnex since they consume most of the crawl budget and bring me 0 organic traffic. Should I noindex them and add an internal nofollow from category pages to property page?

    Thanks!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736660].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author juli sanchez
      Thank you for your reply. You mean to keep them indexed and just use them to backlink to the category pages?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736719].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        Yes, and to other pages.


        Go look into silo structure for SEO. Bruce Clay has a good post about this on his blog.



        Originally Posted by juli sanchez View Post

        Thank you for your reply. You mean to keep them indexed and just use them to backlink to the category pages?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736928].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        I mean this:
        Create a silo structure. Look up Bruce Clay's post on silos.

        At the very list, create a page for each city you are in, pages for each neighborhood and link the neighborhood pages between them. Also, link all of them to the city page. Link all the city pages between them and to your home/sale page. Then link all the houses you sold in a neighborhood between them and link each one to the neighborhood page.

        You are trying to create, at the very least, wheels. That link to each other to form another link. But it is ok if you link back and forth.

        Think of your Visitor. They land, say, on a page for a condo you sold/have for sale on Broadway in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood. What might they want to do next? Go to your home/sale page. But if you have a link to condos in an association with low assessments or only for people over 55, some might be interested.

        Or, they like the condo but not the neighborhood so, if you have a link to a condo that is similar but 30k less in the Uptown neighborhood, they might be interested.

        If I were you, I would get a loan originator you work you to write you articles about how to get a loan.

        I do not mean the usual things... But pitfalls. Like, in the States, if you want an ITIN (non-citizen), and you renewed your ITIN after you opened your last credit card/loan, you will have to bring proof that you have paid on time for 12 months your phone, electric and gas bill (or some other monthly bill). Even if you have a credit score of 800 and have 10 credit cards you are actively using.
        Originally Posted by juli sanchez View Post

        Thank you for your reply. You mean to keep them indexed and just use them to backlink to the category pages?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11738880].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by juli sanchez View Post

    I have a real estate site with millions of pages. The category pages are the ones which are bringing the most amount of traffic and which are the ones I want to optimize. The individual property pages within the site are the ones Im planning to set as noidnex since they consume most of the crawl budget and bring me 0 organic traffic. Should I noindex them and add an internal nofollow from category pages to property page?

    Thanks!
    I have been trying to think of a more elegant way to say this... but I cant, so pardon the harshness here... doing this would be the dumbest thing you could do. It would probably take your months apon months and maybe even years to recover from such a seemingly easy adjustment.

    The Category pages bring you traffic - I am in no way going to argue this point at all... but its the Property Pages that actually make the sales for you... and yes will bring in very minor organic traffic.

    You need to think like a buyer... you are going to jump on google and search "real estate in X city" and THIS is where you are seeing ALL of the organic traffic at... You should know and I DO know that 99% of that traffic are tire kickers... people just looking.

    People that are actually looking to BUY...will write down the address or save the page or share the page with friends... 2 out of the 3 would be non organic search - they would be "Direct" Traffic. the third ( writing down the address ) will appear as organic traffic for a property when they search later. In todays world, I will agree this number will be smaller - but my experience would suggest that a direct address search probably converts the best ( by percentage ) or the 3 options ( Saved listing, Shared listings, wwriting down the address )

    When you goto say Walmart .com or Amazon .com are you buying directly from the Category page, OR from the product page itself? Is your site any different? Remove your product / listing pages from search and you have literally just shot yourself in the foot...

    To put this into a real interesting perspective... the average Realtor fee is 6%? thats 3% for the buyer agent and 3% for the listing agent. Remove the actual product / listing pages and you can just short of kiss the seller 3% goodbye... people will not be on YOUR page looking at homes to buy, and thinkiing of YOU or your agency to represent them in the buying process.

    They will be there to look, but when they narrow down the selection to looking at say 3 homes and they want to show the spouse or the parents or whoever and go in real quick and search <insert adress here> you wont be there.

    The Category pages bring the traffic, and its the product / listing page that actually closes the deal - in terms of the role plaid by online efforts. The walk through just seals the deal - does the house look as good in person as it does online.

    I would be focusing more on updating an "active" site map say bi-weekly, if not more often, so the "crawl budget" is actively indexing new properties.

    Hope that Helps!
    Signature
    Success is an ACT not an idea
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736680].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author juli sanchez
      Thanks for your detailed reply. But most of these property pages don't appear in the serps.. their current status in search console is "crawled, not indexed". Which is why i thought it's worth experimenting with the noindex. In the future, when we're able to add more unique content to these pages, it might be worth reopening them for indexing. Currently, apart from most of them not getting indexed, when an indexed property gets sold, it redirects the user to the category page, which is anyway bad. My idea is to add more unique content for them in the future and keep those pages as sold. With this context, do you still think it's a bad idea?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736720].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author jhajdhj
      Banned
      [DELETED]
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736891].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    Thanks for your detailed reply. But ...

    Again and again we see replies that are 'thanks for the advice, but....'


    Which means 'it's not what I wanted to hear'.


    when an indexed property gets sold, it redirects the user to the category page

    I'm not the expert on this that savidge4 and others are - but i'm curious about that comment. Why couldn't a 'sold' page redirect to a 'similar properties in the area' or 'similar properties available' page? Is that even possible?
    Signature
    Saving one dog will not change the world - but the world changes forever for that one dog
    ***
    One secret to happiness is to let every situation be
    what it is instead of what you think it should be.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736740].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author juli sanchez
      Hello, thanks but.. haha
      No really, i want to hear all kinds of opinions that's why posted my question here and I really appreciate everyone's thoughts, the more the better.
      Regarding your question, the current solution of redirecting from a property page from the serps to a category page isn't satisfying the user query because if the searched for something specific enough to see a serp of a property, their intent should be satisfied and not take them to a page for them to then filter and the redirect is creating more latency. Ideally, if we keep these pages indexed, I'd mark the property as sold and create a module with similar properties on that page itself. However, that'll take more time than currently noindexing,nofollowing these pages which are bringing 0 organic value and spending over 90% of the crawl budget to end up in the "crawled not indexed" status on search console. What do you think?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736761].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author CyberSorcerer
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      I'm not the expert on this that savidge4 and others are - but i'm curious about that comment. Why couldn't a 'sold' page redirect to a 'similar properties in the area' or 'similar properties available' page? Is that even possible?

      I just stopped by for like the second time in the past 10 years I believe to see how things are going and this is the second post I clicked on the view and recognized your name from the time span that I spent here back in like 2010 I believe.

      But the answer to your question is a little in-depth one if you really want to get into it which is pretty much required but Google has progressed A LOT over the years and today is much, much more knowledgeable about the internet, behaviors, etc. My answer would probably be too big to post here, especially being that no one really knows me here pretty much now but I'm sure if you take a little time, maybe a Fri and Sat to research and look into it you'd find the information you need.

      I'm going to go back through post and see what everyone is having problems with today and if I can find any more of the old-timers like Caliban, Brian McLeod, etc.

      Those Where The Days!

      CyberSorcerer
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736988].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author juli sanchez
        Hello, my name and surname are pretty common in Latin America and Spain. I wasn't around in 2010.

        I did do a lot of research and there's not much information about this. People usually talk about either ecommerce product pages and their behaviour or low value bringing pages with UGC.. which have nothing to do with the type of pages I'm talking about. that's why i posted my question here.. I feel like it's an experiment worth trying. But if you think otherwise, please share your thoughts. Thank you.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736991].message }}
  • Why not still go to the listing but have an updated page that says "Sold" and maybe the selling price. This could possibly make potential buyers become more aggressive in their home search. Also, you could have a banner with similar properties at the bottom so they could stay on the site


    Wil
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736840].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author norfa
    No, link these pages to the pages that are not indexed. use hyperlinks with targeted keywords.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11736896].message }}
  • It's generally a good idea to noindex low-value pages on your site, especially if they are not important for users or have thin or duplicate content. Noindexing these pages tells search engines not to include them in their search results, which can help improve the overall quality of your site's search results and prevent dilution of your site's authority.

    That being said, there are a few things to consider before noindexing pages on your site:
    • Make sure the pages are truly low value: Before noindexing a page, consider whether it provides value to users or serves an important purpose on your site. If it does, you may want to keep it indexed.
    • Consider the potential impact on your site's traffic: Noindexing a page will remove it from search results, which can potentially reduce the traffic to that page. If the page receives a significant amount of traffic, you may want to consider other options before noindexing it.
    • Use 301 redirects instead of noindex tags: If you want to redirect users from a low-value page to another page on your site, it's generally a better practice to use a 301 redirect instead of a noindex tag. This helps preserve the link equity of the low-value page and pass it along to the new page.

    Overall, it's important to carefully consider the potential impact of noindexing pages on your site before taking action. If you have any doubts, it may be helpful to consult with an SEO professional for guidance.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11738835].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Dr Doomain
    Banned
    Use AI to write descriptions about each of the properties and interlink them.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11745780].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author DWolfe
      Originally Posted by Dr Doomain View Post

      Use AI to write descriptions about each of the properties and interlink them.
      Have you actually tried that method, and been successful?
      Signature


      You can earn 10% average annual returns on your investments - https://app.groundfloor.us/r/m2aa7b
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[11745784].message }}
Avatar of Unregistered

Trending Topics