When you first take your company website live online, you are anxious for Google to crawl and index all the pages correctly. After all, you worked hard to research keywords and optimise your site. But did you know that you should hide pages from Google?
This may seem counterintuitive at a first glance. But, as your site grows, you will have pages that are no longer necessary for ranking, although you may want to keep them. Also, you may have private portions of the site – the so-called intranet – which should not be accessible to the public.
How Do You Hide Pages from Google and Other Search Engines?
Google bots follow some rules when crawling websites. They are like visitors in a museum. They do not go where they are not allowed to. But how do you tell Google not to crawl a page.
If you want to hide pages from Google, you need to add a “noindex” tag to the page. It is the cyber equivalent of “do not enter”. Here is how to do it:
- In the backend of the site, find the page you want to remove from indexing
- Find the header section of the page
- Write the noindex tag: <meta name= “robots” content= “noindex”>
- Update the source page and exit.
Types of Pages You Should Exclude from Google Indexing
Now, what are the types of pages to hide from Google? Digital marketing experts recommend the following:
Private Documents and Confidential Information
Certain documents on yours contain sensitive data, such as financial records, legal documents, and personal identification details. They may be available to clients, business partners, and other relevant stakeholders by logging in with a unique user name and password.
Hiding such pages from Google is essential to prevent unauthorised access to these confidential materials. A simple slip may expose proprietary business information to the general public and your competitors, among others.
Internal Communication and Employee Resources
Some websites contains pages meant exclusively for internal communication or employee resources. You should hide these pages from search engines to maintain the privacy of company-related information.
Also, internal communications may contain highly sensitive information, such as a change in ownership, management or business strategy.
Membership and Subscription Content
Websites with membership or subscription models often provide exclusive content to their subscribers. By excluding these pages from search engine indexes, you ensure that only paying members can access this valuable material.
After all, once the resource somehow becomes available for free for just a few users, those who paid for the content will understandably become upset and even demand a refund.
Printer-Friendly Version of Site Pages
Many websites offer simplified versions of pages, without photos or graphics, for users who want to print them. This is often the case of cooking recipes and step by step tutorials. They should have a noindex tag. Why?
You should hide pages from Google that have duplicate content. A printer-friendly version of the main page is essentially a duplicate of the original. Thus, your site may be penalised if these pages are indexed.
Outdated or Irrelevant Content
Over time, your website may accumulate outdated or irrelevant pages that you want to keep hidden from search engines. This improves the overall quality of search results related to your website.
Ideally, at least once every year, you should audit your site thoroughly and delete all obsolete pages. Or, you can repurpose the content and publish it with the latest updates and necessary changes.
Temporary Landing Pages
When running marketing campaigns or promotions, you might create temporary landing pages. Once the campaign ends, you should hide the pages from Google to prevent users from accessing outdated offers.
This is a good option if you want to run the same campaign at a later date. Otherwise, you should simply delete the landing page.
Similar Product Pages
Many companies sell similar products – such as storage boxes of various sizes or T-shirts in different colours. Some of them will group all similar products in one product page, allowing clients to select the size, design, colour or other characteristics when they place the item in the cart.
Others have separate product pages for each item. In this case, Google should index just one page and you should hide the other pages with a “noindex” tag, because the text on all pages is fairly similar.
If you make the effort to create original descriptions for each product, then you do not need to hide pages from Google.
Sensitive User-Generated Content
If your website allows users to submit content, you might encounter sensitive or inappropriate material. Hiding these pages from search engines prevents such content from negatively impacting your website’s reputation.
After you had the chance to verify each photo or video, you can decide which ones can be visible on your site and indexed by Google.
Test Pages and Experiments
During website updates or experiments, you might create test pages that aren’t meant for public viewing. A/B test pages fall into this category. Hiding these pages avoids confusing users who might stumble upon unfinished content.
Login and Registration Pages
Hiding login and registration pages can prevent unauthorised access attempts. These pages typically contain entry points to sensitive user accounts and databases. Also, they do not contain a lot of written content, which may get them flagged as poor quality pages.
Thank You or Confirmation Pages
Thank you or confirmation pages are often generated after a user completes an action, such as making a purchase. These pages offer no real value to users searching for information, so hiding them helps maintain a streamlined search experience.
Main Takeaways
Not all pages in your website should appear in Google searches. They either contain restricted information, or do not offer valuable content for the average users. This is why you should hide pages from Google, while working hard to optimise those that can attract new leads and convert them into customers.
By following the advice we shared in this guide, your site will rank on Google for the right pages and bring you new clients and more sales.