Blocked URL parameters can still be crawled and indexed by google?

[catalinmoraru]

Hy guys,

I have two questions and one might be a dumb question but there it goes. I just want to be sure that I understand:

IF I tell webmaster tools to ignore an URL Parameter, will google still index and rank my url?

IS it ok if I don't append in the url structure the brand filter?, will I still rank for that brand?

Thanks,

PS: ok 3 questions :)...

[SoleGraphics]

If you want a page or url not crawled then you should use the robots.txt file and robots meta tags. Then, in WMT, make sure those same pages are actually not being crawled

Hope that answers your question

[anthonydnelson]

Parameter handling in Google Webmaster Tools won't get a URL out of the index if it is already indexed.

You need to use the NoIndex robots meta tag in the of your page. Once you add this tag, be sure you are allowing Google to crawl the page. Make sure it is Not blocked via robots.txt or with Parameter handling.

Once the pages have left the index, you can block them from being crawled.

[Truffleweb]

Hi Anthony,

What if we are trying to permanently remove e-commerce website URL's that have multiple parameters from (Google) index. How would we apply noindex to all these URL's with parameters??

e.g.  http://www.x-x-x.co.uk/wine/2013-BROUILLY-Vieilles-Vignes-Domaine-Laurent-Martray-20720-00.html?pack=25009&term=brouilly&categoryFilter=545&page=

The aim is to recrawl and rebuild the index of the whole website using appropriate robots, canonical's & meta-tags, rather than using GWT.

Many thanks

[anthonydnelson]

If you want to permanently remove URLs from the index, this is the basic process:

Have your developer implement NoIndex, Follow to all pages that have the URL parameter you want removed. For example, if the URL contains categoryFilter= (like above), then add the NoIndex, Follow tag to the of the page. Do this for all URL paramters you want removed from the index.

Make sure Google is allowed to crawl those pages. If they are blocked by robots.txt or told not to crawl them via Google Webmaster Tools, Google will not be able to see the newly implement NoIndex, Follow tag.

Then, give it some time and wait. It may take Google a long time to crawl all of these paramtered URLs again. Fallout of the index might be slow.

Once the URLs are gone, consider blocking the crawling of them via robots.txt or in GWT parameter handling.

[Truffleweb]

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