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.
Disallow: /jobs/? is this stopping the SERPs from indexing job posts
-
Hi,
I was wondering what this would be used for as it's in the Robots.exe of a recruitment agency website that posts jobs. Should it be removed?Disallow: /jobs/?
Disallow: /jobs/page/*/Thanks in advance.
James -
Hi James,
So far as I can see you have the following architecture:
- job posting: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/job/post-name/
- jobs listing page: https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/jobs/
Since from the robots.txt the listing page pagination is blocked, the crawler can access only the first 15 job postings are available to crawl via a normal crawl.
I would say, you should remove the blocking from the robots.txt and focus on implementing a correct pagination. *which method you choose is your decision, but allow the crawler to access all of your job posts. Check https://yoast.com/pagination-seo-best-practices/
Another thing I would change is to make the job post title an anchor text for the job posting. (every single job is linked with "Find out more").
Also if possible, create a separate sitemap.xml for your job posts and submit it in Search Console, this way you can keep track of any anomaly with indexation.
Last, and not least, focus on the quality of your content (just as Matt proposed in the first answer).
Good luck!
-
Hi Istvan,
Sorry I've been away for a while. Thanks for all of your advice guys.
Here is the url if that helps?
https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/jobs/
Cheers,
James
-
The idea is (which we both highlighted), that blocking your listing page from robots.txt is wrong, for pagination you have several methods to deal with (how you deal with it, it really depends on the technical possibilities that you have on the project).
Regarding James' original question, my feeling is, that he is somehow blocking their posting pages. Cutting the access to these pages makes it really hard for Google, or any other search engine to index it. But without a URL in front of us, we cannot really answer his question, we can only create theories that he can test
-
Ah yes when it's pointed out like that, it's a conflicting signal isn't It. Makes sense in theory, but if you're setting it to noindex and then passing that on via a canonical it's probably not the best is it.
They're was link out in that thread to a discussion of people who still do that with success, but after reading that I would just use noindex only as you said. (Still prefer the no index on the robots block though)
-
Sorry Richard, but using noindex with canonical link is not quite a good practice.
It's an old entry, but still true: https://www.seroundtable.com/noindex-canonical-google-18274.html
-
I don't think it should be blocked by robots.txt at all. It's stopping Google from crawling the site fully. And they may even treat it negatively as they've been really clamping down on blocking folders with robots.txt lately. I've seen sites with warning in search console for: Disallow: /wp-admin
You may want to consider just using a noindex tag on those pages instead. And then also use a canonical tag that points back to the main job category page. That way Google can crawl the pages and perhaps pass all the juice back to the main job category page via the canonical. Then just make sure those junk job pages aren't in the sitemap either.
-
Hi James,
Regarding the robots.txt syntax:
Disallow: /jobs/? which basically blocks every single URL that contains /jobs/**? **
For example: domain.com**/jobs/?**sort-by=... will be blocked
If you want to disallow query parameters from URL, the correct implementation would be Disallow: /jobs/*? or even specify which query parameter you want to block. For example Disallow: /jobs/*?page=
My question to you, if these jobs are linked from any other page and/or sitemap? Or only from the listing page, which has it's pagination, sorting, etc. is blocked by robots.txt? If they are not linked, it could be a simple case of orphan pages, where basically the crawler cannot access the job posting pages, because there is no actual link to it. I know it is an old rule, but it is still true: Crawl > Index > Rank.
BTW. I don't know why you would block your pagination. There are other optimal implementations.
And there is always the scenario, that was already described by Matt. But I believe in that case you would have at least some of the pages indexed even if they are not going to get ranked well.
Also, make sure other technical implementations are not stopping your job posting pages from being indexed.
-
I'd guess that the jobs get pulled from a job board. If this is the case, then the content ( job description, title etc.) will just be a duplication of the content that can be found in many other locations. If a plugin is used, they sometimes automatically add a disallow into the robots.txt file as to not hurt the parent version of the job page by creating thousands of duplicate content issues.
I'd recommend creating some really high-quality hub pages based on job type, or location and pulling the relevant jobs into that page, instead of trying to index and rank the actual job pages.
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
-
My url disappeared from Google but Search Console shows indexed. This url has been indexed for more than a year. Please help!
Super weird problem that I can't solve for last 5 hours. One of my urls: https://www.dcacar.com/lax-car-service.html Has been indexed for more than a year and also has an AMP version, few hours ago I realized that it had disappeared from serps. We were ranking on page 1 for several key terms. When I perform a search "site:dcacar.com " the url is no where to be found on all 5 pages. But when I check my Google Console it shows as indexed I requested to index again but nothing changed. All other 50 or so urls are not effected at all, this is the only url that has gone missing can someone solve this mystery for me please. Thanks a lot in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davit19850 -
Robots.txt & Disallow: /*? Question!
Hi, I have a site where they have: Disallow: /*? Problem is we need the following indexed: ?utm_source=google_shopping What would the best solution be? I have read: User-agent: *
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vetofunk
Allow: ?utm_source=google_shopping
Disallow: /*? Any ideas?0 -
Redirect wordpress from /%post_id%/%postname%/ to /blog/%postname%/
Hi what is the code to redirect wordpress blog from site.com/%post_id%/%postname%/ to site.com/blog/%postname%/ We are moving the site to a new server and new url structure. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Taiger0 -
[Very Urgent] More 100 "/search/adult-site-keywords" Crawl errors under Search Console
I just opened my G Search Console and was shocked to see more than 150 Not Found errors under Crawl errors. Mine is a Wordpress site (it's consistently updated too): Here's how they show up: Example 1: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html/feed/rss2 Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword/page2.html Example 2 (this surprised me the most when I looked at the linked from data): URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/3/ Linked From: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html/page/2/ (this is showing as if it's from our own site) http://a-spammy-adult-site.com/search/adult-site-keyword-2.html Example 3: URL: www.example.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html Linked From: http://an-adult-image-hosting.com/search/adult-site-keyword-3.html How do I address this issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rmehta10 -
No-index pages with duplicate content?
Hello, I have an e-commerce website selling about 20 000 different products. For the most used of those products, I created unique high quality content. The content has been written by a professional player that describes how and why those are useful which is of huge interest to buyers. It would cost too much to write that high quality content for 20 000 different products, but we still have to sell them. Therefore, our idea was to no-index the products that only have the same copy-paste descriptions all other websites have. Do you think it's better to do that or to just let everything indexed normally since we might get search traffic from those pages? Thanks a lot for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EndeR-0 -
[E-commerce] Duplicate content due to color variations (canonical/indexing)
Hello, We currently have a lot of color variations on multiple products with almost the same content. Even with our canonicals being set, Moz's crawling tool seems to flag them as duplicate content. What we have done so far: Choosing the best-selling color variation (our "master product") Adding a rel="canonical" to every variation (with our "master product" as the canonical URL) In my opinion, it should be enough to address this issue. However, being given the fact that it's flagged as duplicate by Moz, I was wondering if there is something else we should do? Should we add a "noindex,follow" to our child products and "index,follow" to our master product? (sounds to me like such a heavy change) Thank you in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EasyLounge0 -
How long does google take to show the results in SERP once the pages are indexed ?
Hi...I am a newbie & trying to optimize the website www.peprismine.com. I have 3 questions - A little background about this : Initially, close to 150 pages were indexed by google. However, we decided to remove close to 100 URLs (as they were quite similar). After the changes, we submitted the NEW sitemap (with close to 50 pages) & google has indexed those URLs in sitemap. 1. My pages were indexed by google few days back. How long does google take to display the URL in SERP once the pages get indexed ? 2. Does google give more preference to websites with more number of pages than those with lesser number of pages to display results in SERP (I have just 50 pages). Does the NUMBER of pages really matter ? 3. Does removal / change of URLs have any negative effect on ranking ? (Many of these URLs were not shown on the 1st page) An answer from SEO experts will be highly appreciated. Thnx !
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PepMozBot0 -
Posing QU's on Google Variables "aclk", "gclid" "cd", "/aclk" "/search", "/url" etc
I've been doing a bit of stats research prompted by read the recent ranking blog http://www.seomoz.org/blog/gettings-rankings-into-ga-using-custom-variables There are a few things that have come up in my research that I'd like to clear up. The below analysis has been done on my "conversions". 1/. What does "/aclk" mean in the Referrer URL? I have noticed a strong correlation between this and "gclid" in the landing page variable. Does it mean "ad click" ?? Although they seem to "closely" correlate they don't exactly, so when I have /aclk in the referrer Url MOSTLY I have gclid in the landing page URL. BUT not always, and the same applies vice versa. It's pretty vital that I know what is the best way to monitor adwords PPC, so what is the best variable to go on? - Currently I am using "gclid", but I have about 25% extra referral URL's with /aclk in that dont have "gclid" in - so am I underestimating my number of PPC conversions? 2/. The use of the variable "cd" is great, but it is not always present. I have noticed that 99% of my google "Referrer URL's" either start with:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James77
/aclk - No cd value
/search - No cd value
/url - Always contains the cd variable. What do I make of this?? Thanks for the help in advance!0