Should You Make Secondary Pages Non-Indexable? A Comprehensive Guide

Whether or not to make secondary pages non-indexable is a question that many website owners face. On the one hand, you want to have as much of your website indexed as possible so that people can find your content. On the other hand, you don't want to clutter up Google's index with pages that aren't relevant to users.

In this article, we'll take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of making secondary pages non-indexable, and how to decide what's best for your website.

Introduction

When you create a new page on your website, Google will eventually crawl and index it. This means that the page will be included in Google's search results, and users will be able to find it by searching for relevant keywords.

However, not all pages on your website need to be indexed. In fact, there are some cases where it may be beneficial to make secondary pages non-indexable.

What are secondary pages?

Secondary pages are pages on your website that are not essential to your business. They may include things like product pages, category pages, and blog posts.

Why would you want to make secondary pages non-indexable?

There are a few reasons why you might want to make secondary pages non-indexable:

• To improve the performance of your website in search results.
• To reduce duplicate content issues.
• To improve the crawl budget of your website.
• To improve the user experience of your website.

Improved search performance

One of the main benefits of making secondary pages non-indexable is that it can improve the performance of your website in search results.

When Google crawls your website, it has a limited amount of time and resources. If your website has a lot of secondary pages, Google may not have enough time to crawl and index all of them. This can lead to some of your most important pages not being indexed, which can hurt your search performance.

By making secondary pages non-indexable, you can tell Google to focus on crawling and indexing your most important pages. This can help to improve your website's ranking in search results.

Reduced duplicate content issues

Another benefit of making secondary pages non-indexable is that it can help to reduce duplicate content issues.

Duplicate content is when the same content appears on multiple pages on your website. This can be a problem because it can confuse Google and make it difficult for Google to decide which page to rank in search results.

By making secondary pages non-indexable, you can help to avoid duplicate content issues.

Improved crawl budget

Google has a limited amount of time and resources to crawl the web. This is known as the crawl budget.

When Google crawls your website, it uses up some of its crawl budget. If your website has a lot of secondary pages, Google may not have enough crawl budget to crawl all of your pages. This can lead to some of your most important pages not being crawled and indexed.

By making secondary pages non-indexable, you can help to improve the crawl budget of your website. This can help to ensure that Google has enough time and resources to crawl and index your most important pages.

Improved user experience

Finally, making secondary pages non-indexable can also help to improve the user experience of your website.

When users search for something on Google, they want to see results that are relevant to their query. If a user searches for a specific product and they see a bunch of irrelevant product pages in the results, this can be a frustrating experience.

By making secondary pages non-indexable, you can help to ensure that users only see the most relevant pages in the search results. This can improve the user experience of your website and make it more likely that users will visit your website and click on your links.

How to decide whether or not to make a secondary page non-indexable

There are a few factors you should consider when deciding whether or not to make a secondary page non-indexable:

The importance of the page

If the secondary page is important to your business, you may want to keep it indexable. For example, if you have a product page for a top-selling product, you would want to keep it indexable so that potential customers can find it easily.

The relevance of the page

If the secondary page is relevant to your target audience, you may also want to keep it indexable. For example, if you have a blog post about a popular topic related to your industry, you would want to keep it indexable so that your target audience can find it and learn more about the topic.

The quality of the page

If the secondary page is high-quality and informative, you may also want to keep it indexable. For example, if you have a product page that includes detailed product descriptions, high-quality images, and customer reviews, you would want to keep it indexable so that potential customers can learn more about the product before they buy it.

The user experience

If the secondary page provides a good user experience, you may also want to keep it indexable. For example, if you have a blog post that is well-written and easy to read, you would want to keep it indexable so that your target audience can enjoy reading it.

The crawl budget

If you have a limited crawl budget, you may want to make some secondary pages non-indexable so that Google has more time and resources to crawl and index your most important pages. For example, if you have a lot of product pages, you may want to make some of the less popular product pages non-indexable.

Duplicate content

If you have duplicate content on your website, you may want to make some of the duplicate pages non-indexable. This will help to reduce duplicate content issues and improve your website's performance in search results.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to make a secondary page non-indexable is a case-by-case decision. You should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of making secondary pages non-indexable and decide what is best for your website.

If you are unsure about whether or not to make a secondary page non-indexable, you can always consult with an SEO expert.

FAQ

Q: What are secondary pages?

A: Secondary pages are pages on your website that are not essential to your business. They may include things like product pages, category pages, and blog posts.

Q: Why would I want to make secondary pages non-indexable?

A: There are a few reasons why you might want to make secondary pages non-indexable:

• To improve the performance of your website in search results.
• To reduce duplicate content issues.
• To improve the crawl budget of your website.
• To improve the user experience of your website.

Q: How do I make a secondary page non-indexable?

A: There are two ways to make a secondary page non-indexable:

1. Using the robots.txt file: The robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engines which pages on your website they should and should not crawl. To make a secondary page non-indexable using the robots.txt file, add the following line to the file:

Disallow: /path/to/secondary-page.html 

2. Using the noindex meta tag: The noindex meta tag is a piece of code that you can add to the header of a secondary page to tell search engines not to index the page. To add the noindex meta tag to a secondary page, add the following code to the header of the page:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex"> 

Q: What are the drawbacks of making secondary pages non-indexable?

A: The main drawback of making secondary pages non-indexable is that you may lose some traffic from search engines. However, the benefits of making secondary pages non-indexable often outweigh the drawbacks.

Q: Should I make all of my secondary pages non-indexable?

A: It is not necessary to make all of your secondary pages non-indexable. You may want to keep some secondary pages indexable, such as important product pages and blog posts. However, you should consider making secondary pages that are not essential to your business non-indexable.

Glossary of Terms

• Crawl budget: The crawl budget is the amount of time and resources that Google has to crawl your website.
• Duplicate content: Duplicate content is when the same content appears on multiple pages on your website.
• Index: The index is a database of all the pages that Google has crawled and indexed.
• Meta tag: A meta tag is a piece of code that you can add to the header of a web page to provide information about the page to search engines.
• Robots.txt file: The robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engines which pages on your website they should and should not crawl.

Other background remediation

In addition to the information above, here are some other things to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to make secondary pages non-indexable:

• If you have a large website with a lot of secondary pages, making some of these pages non-indexable can help to improve the performance of your website in search results. This is because Google will have more time and resources to crawl and index your most important pages.
• If you have a lot of duplicate content on your website, making secondary pages non-indexable can help to reduce duplicate content issues. This is because Google will only index the most important page for a given topic.
• If you have a limited crawl budget, making secondary pages non-indexable can help to ensure that Google has enough time and resources to crawl and index your most important pages. This is because Google will not waste time crawling and indexing pages that you do not want to appear in search results.
• If you want to improve the user experience of your website, making secondary pages non-indexable can help to ensure that users only see the most relevant pages in the search results. This is because Google will not show secondary pages in search results if they are not relevant to the user's query.

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to make secondary pages non-indexable is a case-by-case decision. You should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of making secondary pages non-indexable and decide what is best for your website.