Why blocking a subfolder dropped indexed pages with 10%?

[catalinmoraru]

Hy Guys,

maybe you can help me to understand better:

on 17.04 I had 7600 pages indexed in google (WMT showing 6113).

I have included in the robots.txt file, Disallow: /account/  - which contains the registration page, wishlist, etc. and other stuff since I'm not interested to rank with registration form.

on 23.04 I had 6980 pages indexed in google (WMT showing 5985).

I understand that this way I'm telling google I don't want that section indexed, by way so manny pages?, Because of the faceted navigation?

Cheers

[MickEdwards]

Maybe there are multiple URL variations created.  For example, URL parameters, which will create multiple URLs to be indexed in Google.

[catalinmoraru]

I don't think so, because the URLs are static (www.domain.com/account/register), these urls don't parameters.

[JaneCopland]

Hi,

The drop could be unrelated to your disallowing the account pages (but perhaps check if the CMS allows random query strings, and look into whether it could have created any upon user action, etc. just in case). It's pretty common to see fluctuations in the number of indexed pages, especially with numbers of pages in the thousands or higher. Have you noticed a decrease in traffic from search that you can match with deindexation of pages that were previously bringing in visitors?

[catalinmoraru]

Hi Jane,

It was a small drop in traffic, but only few visits, nothing significant.

[JaneCopland]

Hi,

If nothing significant, and no noticeable loss in rankings (e.g. no pages that were bringing in legitimate traffic were affected), I would wait this out and keep and eye on indexed pages. I've definitely seem similar rises / falls in indexed pages, but if the activity doesn't coincide with "real world" traffic / ranking consequences, it tends to be Google removing unnecessary pages (pagination, etc.) or even reporting error.

[catalinmoraru]

The thing is that I am checking indexed pages on a regular basis and usually the fluctuations are not big, only changes few pages. But never such manny pages. The traffic from organic did drop, but just slightly and rankings were never affected.

But as you said, I will keep an eye on this.