What to do if lots of backend pages have been indexed by Google erroneously?

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Hi Guys

Our developer forgot to add a no index no follow tag on the pages he created in the back-end. So we have now ended up with lots of back end pages being indexed in google. So my question is, since many of those are now indexed in Google, so is it enough to just place a no index no follow on those or should we do a 301 redirect on all those to the most appropriate page?

If a no index no follow is enough, that would create lots of 404 errors so could those affect the site negatively?

Cheers

Chloe
#search engine optimization #backend #erroneously #google #indexed #lots #pages
  • Those pages don't matter. You have to do nothing.

    If those pages show up...instead of some other one that you think should...then your site has BIG problems.

    Noindex is actually for rare reasons. When you want to funnel and force people to one page before they get to another. That is, to the page you noindex.

    Paul
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    • Thanks Paul, the issue has been that the backend pages got indexed and ranked before the regular pages that we want to show. So yes a big problem...So I have manually checked which backend pages got ranked before the regular pages and then we 301 redirected those to the preferred urls (canonical). So the rankings got back again fortunately for the most important pages...

      But in Google Analytics I can see that lot of additional backend pages have been registered as well (and indexed in google). I am not sure if they had any rankings or ranked before other pages. But they all have the no index no follow tag on them. So they all show 404 errors. So in this scenario, do I have to go back and 301 all those backend pages that got indexed in Google and 301 them? Thanks again for your help. Cheers Chloe
  • If you solely redirect the pages, the back end page URLs might continue to be index in Google. Just that when people click on it, your page will send them to the URL you are redirecting to.

    To get google to remove them from the index with a little more certainty, you need to add the no index tag.

    You might be able to accomplish both by adding the no index tag before the redirection code. This is so that the spiders will be able to crawl the no index command before seeing the redirection.

    If the redirection code is before the no index tag, it might send the spider straight to the other URL without reading the no index command.

    If the back end pages contain gibberish or content that is irrelevant to a visitor, I'd no index them immediately.

    I also think that your site must have been set up wrongly to have the back end indexed. It's not called a back end for nothing. So do find out the source of the problem instead of focusing on solving symptoms.
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  • Deleting whatever left-overs you want is fine. Do it and stop worry about what will happen.

    Sites shadding old stuff all the time and if there is nothing to scroll and to refresh cache,
    sooner or later old junk will be dropped from SE index to free space for more junk that is
    floating around.

    Using "no index" and/or "no follow" will tell crawlers that there is something you have
    you need but don't want to be exposed, thus keeping your old junk indexed, just in case.

    Why would anyone punish you for keeping your site SE friendly?



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