• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4. Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?

        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.

        Does having alot of pages with noindex and nofollow tags affect rankings?

        Intermediate & Advanced SEO
        4
        9
        2299
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • JimJ
          JimJ last edited by

          We are an e-commerce marketplace at for alternative fashion and home decor. We have over 1000+ stores on the marketplace.  Early this year, we switched the website from HTTP to HTTPS in March 2018 and also added noindex and nofollow tags to the store about page and store policies (mostly boilerplate content)

          Our traffic dropped by 45% and we have since not recovered. We have done

          I am wondering could these tags be affecting our rankings?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • JimJ
            JimJ @GastonRiera last edited by

            Hi Gaston

            Thank you for the detailed response and suggestions. I will follow up with my findings. Point 3 and 4; - I think there is something there.

            James

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • GastonRiera
              Gaston Riera @JimJ last edited by

              Hi James,

              Great that you've checked out those items and there aren't errors.

              I'd break my response into bullet points so its easier to respond 🙂

              1- I'm bugged that the traffic loss occurs in the same month as the https redirection. 
              That completely tells me that you've either killed, redirected or noindexed some pages that drove a lot of traffic. 
              2- Also it could be possible that you didn't deserve that much traffic due to either being ranked on searches that you weren't relevant or Google didn't fully understand your site. That often happens when migration takes places, as Google needs to re-calculate and fully understand the new site.

              3- If you have still on the old HTTP search Console property, I'd check as many (and in some scalable way) keywords as possible, trying to find which have fallen out in rankings.
              4- When checking those keywords, compare URLs that were ranked, there could be some changes.

              5- And lastly, have you made sure that there aren't any indexation and/or Crawlability issues? Check the raw number of indexable URLs and compare it with the number that Search Console shows in the index coverage report.

              Best wishes.
              GR

              JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JimJ
                JimJ @GastonRiera last edited by

                Hi Gaston

                Thank you for sharing your insights.

                1. I have looked through all the pages and made sure we have not noindexed important pages

                2. The migration went well; no double redirects or duplicate content.

                3. I looked through Google search console - Fixed all the errors; (mostly complains about 404 error caused by products that are out of stock or from vendors who leave the website)

                4. A friend said he thinks our pages are over-optimized - and hence that could be the reason; We went ahead and tweaked all the pages that were driving traffic; but change.

                If you have a moment here is our website: www.rebelsmarket.com - If there is anything that standsout please let me know. I appreciate your help

                James

                GastonRiera 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JimJ
                  JimJ @jasongmcmahon last edited by

                  Hi Joe

                  We have applied all the redirects carefully and tested them to make sure; we have no duplicate content

                  The url:  www.rebelsmarket.com

                  Redirect to SSL: March 2018 (we started with the blog and then moved to products page)

                  We added; noindex and nofollow tags at the sametime;

                  Thank you

                  James

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JimJ
                    JimJ @JohnSammon last edited by

                    Hi John

                    Sorry, I have been tied up with travel schedule. Here is the website www.rebelsmarket.com

                    Thank you for your help John

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • jasongmcmahon
                      jasongmcmahon last edited by

                      Hi James,

                      Yiut issues lie elsewhere - did anything else happen during the update? My first thoughts are that the redirects were incorrectly applied.

                      • Whats the URL?
                      • When was the redirect HTTP > HTTPS installed & how?
                      • When was  noindex and nofollow tags added?

                      You're a month in, so you should be able to recover. Sharing the URL would be useful if you need any further assistance.

                      JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JohnSammon
                        JohnSammon last edited by

                        Hey James - would you be comfortable sharing the URL? I can run some diagnostics on it to see what other issues could be the cause of the drop.

                        Thanks!

                        John

                        JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • GastonRiera
                          Gaston Riera last edited by

                          Hi James,

                          I'm sorry to hear that you've lost over 45% of your traffic.
                          Absolutely not, having a lot of noindex and nofollow pages won't affect your rankings and your SEO strength.

                          On the other hand, a traffic drop could be related to many issues, some of them:

                          • Algorithm changes, there has been a lot of movement this year
                          • You've noindexed some of your high traffic pages
                          • Some part of the migration gone wrong
                          • And the list could be endless.

                          I'd start checking Search Console, there you could spot which keywords and/or URLs are those that aren't ranking that high.

                          It might come handy, this sort of tutorial on analyzing a traffic drop: How to Diagnose SEO Traffic Drops: 11 Questions to Answer - Moz Blog

                          Hope it helps.
                          Best luck.
                          GR

                          JimJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • Brenda.Haines

                            Looking for opinions on structuring meta title tags/page title/menu title/H1

                            Hi everyone I am hoping a few of you can share your opinions. I have been having conversations (okay, healthy debates) about how to write/structure meta title tag and how to compliment them with the H1, page title, menu name. To help explain the thought processes I will use a pretend keyword. How about "screwdriver". Case: (I made this up) we are redesigning a website for a construction tools manufacturing company (pretend name: ABC Tools) targeting OEMs who are interested in purchasing large quantities of tools. The product categories (to become main menu items) are Screwdrivers, Nails, Drills, and Hammers. (bear with me .... this is just an example I am making up on the fly) K. Circling back to screwdrivers - let's say we have one landing page (a primary category page and in the main menu) listing products and great details about screwdrivers. Focus keywords are screwdriver manufacturer, screwdriver supplier, construction screwdrivers Below are questions being debated. If you are willing ... how would you address these questions? And, can you explain WHY? QUESTION ONE: How would you structure the meta title tag (feel free to write one of your own) Screwdriver Manufacturer - Construction Screwdriver | ABC Tools ABC Tools - US-based Screwdriver Manufacturer Supplier Near You High-Quality Screwdrivers for Construction with ABC Tools QUESTION TWO: how would you write the H1 on the page? Would it match the meta tag? OR, would you write something different using the primary keyword? QUESTION THREE Remembering this is not a blog post ... it is a primary landing page linked to the main navigation. What would the menu title be? (remember the product categories above are how the main menu items are bucketed) Screwdrivers Screwdriver Manufacturer Typically in WordPress, the H1 and the menu title is auto-populated using the page title (not the title tag)... So, if we use Screwdrivers as the page title but we want the H1 to match the meta title tag, would we manually change the H1? Or, have the page title and title tag match, but manually change the menu item?

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brenda.Haines
                            1
                          • Kingalan1

                            Best Practices for Title Tags for Product Listing Page

                            My industry is commercial real estate in New York City. Our site has 300 real estate listings. The format we have been using for Title Tags are below. This probably disastrous from an SEO perspective. Using number is a total waste space. A few questions:
                            -Should we set listing not no index if they are not content rich?
                            -If we do choose to index them, should we avoid titles listing Square Footage and dollar amounts?
                            -Since local SEO is critical, should the titles always list New York, NY or Manhattan, NY?
                            -I have red that titles should contain some form of branding. But our company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space. That would take up way too much space. Even "Metro Manhattan" is long. DO we need to use the title tag for branding or can we just focus on a brief description of page content incorporating one important phrase? Our site is: w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . c o m <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
                            | Turnkey Flatiron Tech Space | 2,850 SF $10,687/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
                            | Gallery, Office Rental | Midtown, W. 57 St | 4441SF $24055/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
                            | Open Plan Loft |Flatiron, Chelsea | 2414SF $12,874/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
                            | Tribeca Corner Loft | Varick Street | 2267SF $11,712/month | <colgroup><col width="405"></colgroup>
                            | 275 Madison, LAW, P7, 3,252SF, $65 - Manhattan, New York |

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
                            0
                          • vtmoz

                            Do 403 Forbidden errors from website pages hurt rankings?

                            Hi All, I noticed that our website has lot of 403 errors across different pages using the tool http://www.deadlinkchecker.com/. Do these errors hurt website rankings? Thanks

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz
                            0
                          • dkeipper

                            Page Rank Worse After Optimization

                            For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dkeipper
                            0
                          • paulissai

                            Do low quality subdomains affect the ranking performance/quality of a root domain?

                            Hi, Late last year the company I work for launched two new websites that, at the time, we believed were completely separate from our main website. The two new websites were set up externally and were not well-planned from an SEO perspective (LOTS of duplicate content) - hence, they have struggled to rank on Google. Since the launch of the new websites we have also noticed that our main website (that previously ranked very well) has suffered a decline in visitation and search engine rank. We initially attributed this to a number of factors, including the state of the market, and ramped up our SEO efforts (seeing minor improvement). We have since realised that these two new websites have been set up as subdomains of our main website, with MOZ displaying the same domain authority and root domain backlink profile. My question is, do poor quality subdomains affect the ranking performance of a root domain? I have not yet managed to find a definitive answer. Please let me know if more information is required - I am quite new to the whole SEO concept. Thanks! Amy

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | paulissai
                            0
                          • Kingalan1

                            Domain Authority: 23, Page Authority: 33, Can My Site Still Rank?

                            Greetings: Our New York City commercial real estate site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Key MOZ metric are as follows: Domain Authority: 23
                            Page Authority: 33
                            28 Root Domains linking to the site
                            179 Total Links. In the last six months domain authority, page authority, domains linking to the site have declined. We have focused on removing duplicate content and low quality links which may have had a negative impact on the above metrics. Our ranking has dropped greatly in the last two months. Could it be due to the above metrics? These numbers seem pretty bad. How can I reverse without engaging in any black hat behavior that could work against me in the future? Ideas?
                            Thanks, Alan Rosinsky

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
                            0
                          • bjs2010

                            Meta NoIndex tag and Robots Disallow

                            Hi all, I hope you can spend some time to answer my first of a few questions 🙂 We are running a Magento site - layered/faceted navigation nightmare has created thousands of duplicate URLS! Anyway, during my process to tackle the issue, I disallowed in Robots.txt anything in the querystring that was not a p (allowed this for pagination). After checking some pages in Google, I did a site:www.mydomain.com/specificpage.html and a few duplicates came up along with the original with
                            "There is no information about this page because it is blocked by robots.txt" So I had added in Meta Noindex, follow on all these duplicates also but I guess it wasnt being read because of Robots.txt. So coming to my question. Did robots.txt block access to these pages? If so, were these already in the index and after disallowing it with robots, Googlebot could not read Meta No index? Does Meta Noindex Follow on pages actually help Googlebot decide to remove these pages from index? I thought Robots would stop and prevent indexation? But I've read this:
                            "Noindex is a funny thing, it actually doesn’t mean “You can’t index this”, it means “You can’t show this in search results”. Robots.txt disallow means “You can’t index this” but it doesn’t mean “You can’t show it in the search results”. I'm a bit confused about how to use these in both preventing duplicate content in the first place and then helping to address dupe content once it's already in the index. Thanks! B

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs2010
                            0
                          • monster99

                            How to Disallow Tag Pages With Robot.txt

                            Hi i have a site which i'm dealing with that has tag pages for instant - http://www.domain.com/news/?tag=choice How can i exclude these tag pages (about 20+ being crawled and indexed by the search engines with robot.txt Also sometimes they're created dynamically so i want something which automatically excludes tage pages from being crawled and indexed. Any suggestions? Cheers, Mark

                            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monster99
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          • Digital Marketers
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.