Indexing isolated webpages

[Tarek_Lel]

Hi all,
We are running a classifieds website.Due to technical limitations, we will probably not be able to list or search expired ads, but we still can view ad details view page if you landed on expired ad from external page (or google search results).Our concern is, if the ad page is still exists, but it's totally isolated from the website (i.e not found by search option on the website and no following site links) will google remove it from the index?Thanks,

T

[Hutch42]

It will not remove a page just because the link is gone. Your best bet would be to set up your back end to automaticly add a noindex meta tag into the of ads once they expire.

Example of tag

[Tarek_Lel]

Thanks Hutch42, I actually want to keep ranking for these expired ads despite not having them displated in the classified ads list since they have decent ranking on some long tail searches and I can't create specific landing pages with fresh content to target these searches yet.

[Hutch42]

You may want to be careful keeping pages live that are basically useless to visitors, if the ads are expired and it makes people leave your site (bounce) it will hurt your entire site, not just those pages.

[donford]

I agree with Hutch42, the isolated pages are what the industry calls "orphan pages". There is some good info about the subject you may want to dive into before you make your final decision.