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Will noindex pages still get link equity?
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We think we get link equity from some large travel domains to white label versions of our main website. These pages are noindex because they're the same URLs and content as our main B2C website and have canonicals to the pages we want indexed. Question is, is there REALLY link equity to pages on our domain which have "noindex,nofollow" on them?
Secondly we're looking to put all these white label pages on a separate structure, to better protect our main indexed pages from duplicate content risks. The best bet would be to put them on a sub folder rather than a subdomain, yes? That way, even though the pages are still noindex, we'd get link equity from these big domains to www.ourdomain.com/subfolder where we wouldn't to subdomain.ourdomain.com?
Thank you!
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According to John Mueller, the answer is no (at least in the long term)
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-long-term-noindex-follow-24990.html
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Thanks for your advice chaps - ultimately a change is coming in a couple of weeks, might update this page if it's useful...
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I agree with Gaston´s view. What is stopping you though from changing the nofollow tag to follow and maintain the canonical and noindex? That way you wouldn´t have duplicate content issues (either on the main domain, folder or subdomain) and still pass link equity.
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Hello Josep,
Firstly, when the noindex tag by itself doesnt stop pagerank to be transfered. The tag nofollow is the problem here.
Remember that the link equity is passed when you/the page lets the googlebot to go to and "follow" the next page.Secondly, if you still repect the noindex, canonical and all the correct stuff to prevent the duplicate content, there will be no difference between folder and subdomain.
Hope it helps.
Best Luck.
GR.
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