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. SEO and Digital Marketing Q&A Forum
    2. Categories
    3. Technical SEO Issues
    4. Why is google ignoring my sitelinks demotions?

    Why is google ignoring my sitelinks demotions?

    Technical SEO Issues
    2 2 737
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • Hakkasan
      Hakkasan last edited by

      I'm referring to the sitelinks that appear in the SERPs when searching for my brand name. 6 subpages come up- some found in my main navigation, some not. 3 of the 6 sitelinks have been demoted in Webmaster Tools under "Site Configuration > Sitelinks."

      I realize that they say in their instructions: "Google doesn't guarantee that demoted URLs will never appear as a sitelink, but we do consider a demotion a strong hint that we'll try to honor when generating sitelinks." I am just surprised they would ignore 3 of the demotions and for so long. The pages that are demoted do not have very many internal links pointing to them (unlike other pages of my site that are targeted specifically). Also, the site has tens of thousands of pages to choose from.

      Why are they ignoring my request? What else can I do to fix this?

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

        It sounds like it's been a while since you demoted those pages. I think this sounds more like a bug that it's not happening. You could go to the Google Webmaster Forum and submit a request there or if it's urgent and the following solution is doable, you could try blocking those 3 pages via a noindex tag or via robots.txt and see if they get removed that way. Once the pages have been removed using that technique, you could remove the noindex tags or disallows in robots.txt unless you would prefer to keep it that way and you don't want those 3 pages to show up anywhere...period. I hope that helps.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • 1 / 1
        • First post
          Last post
        • Sitelink search in google search for Brand name redirect me to 404, how?
          amu123
          amu123
          0
          4
          73

        • Influencing Sitelinks - Achievable with Schema or Solely Automated by Google
          Alick300
          Alick300
          0
          2
          254

        • Google + and Google Knoladge Graph
          MiriamEllis
          MiriamEllis
          0
          14
          188

        • Google Webmaster Tools Sitelinks Demotions
          ZiaTG
          ZiaTG
          0
          5
          1.8k

        • Google ignores Meta name="Robots"
          brad.s.knutson
          brad.s.knutson
          0
          4
          282

        • Google Sitelinks
          Mike.Goracke
          Mike.Goracke
          0
          2
          270

        • Why is Google showing sitelinks for 1 of our keywords, but not the other which is very similar?
          Christy-Correll
          Christy-Correll
          0
          6
          223

        • Google Sitelinks
          bradkrussell
          bradkrussell
          0
          3
          1.1k

        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 - 2026 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy