Pros and Cons of a Noindex Strategy
As an e-commerce shop owner, you’re constantly striving for higher search rankings, more organic traffic, and ultimately, increased sales. While much of the focus is on optimising product pages and categories, a critical, often overlooked, strategy is knowing which pages not to index. This is where the noindex tag comes in – a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can significantly tidy up your SEO profile and improve your site’s overall performance.
This guide will demystify noindex for e-commerce, show you exactly how to implement it with Rank Math, explore its benefits and drawbacks, and offer additional SEO tips for your online shop.
What Does Noindex Mean, and Why Use It?
In simple terms, adding a noindex tag to a page tells search engines (like Google) not to include that page in their search results. It’s like telling them, “Hey, crawler, you can visit this page, but please don’t show it to users searching on Google.”
For e-commerce, noindex is crucial for preventing low-value, duplicate, or sensitive pages from cluttering search results. These pages, while necessary for the user experience, offer little to no unique content value for SEO and can dilute your site’s authority if indexed.
Which E-commerce Pages Should You Noindex?
While every site is unique, here are the most common e-commerce page types (beyond just WooCommerce) that generally benefit from a noindex tag:
Checkout Pages: These are dynamic, user-specific, and contain sensitive payment information. You absolutely don’t want users landing here directly from a Google search.
Basket/Cart Pages: Similar to checkout, basket pages are dynamic and specific to a user’s session.
“My Account” / Login / Registration Pages: These pages are for administrative purposes for logged-in users and hold no value for general search.
Order Confirmation / Thank You Pages: These are unique to each transaction and have no SEO value.
Internal Search Results Pages: Pages generated from your site’s internal search function often create a lot of thin or duplicate content.
Filter/Sort Combinations: If your e-commerce platform generates unique URLs for every filter and sort combination (e.g., shoes?colour=blue&size=medium), these can create an explosion of duplicate content. However, use judgement here – some single-filter category pages (like “blue shoes” or “women’s trainers”) may have genuine search value and could warrant indexing if they offer unique content. Focus on noindexing complex multi-filter combinations and sorting parameters.
Crucial Advice: Always use noindex, follow. The follow directive tells search engines to still crawl the links on that page, ensuring that valuable link equity is passed to your important product and category pages.
Understanding the Nuance of noindex, follow
A common question is: “If I tell Google not to index the page, won’t it stop following the links?” This is a brilliant observation, as the relationship between these two tags has important implications.
The Immediate Effect
When Google’s spider first visits a page and sees the complete directive:
html
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">It respects the follow instruction immediately. It crawls all the internal links on that page (e.g., links back to your product pages) and ensures link equity is passed correctly.
It respects the noindex instruction immediately. It removes the page from the search index (if it was previously listed).
The Long-Term Considerations
There’s ongoing discussion in the SEO community about the long-term effects of noindexing pages:
Reduced Crawl Frequency: If a page has been noindexed for an extended period, Google may reduce how often it crawls that specific URL, as it determines the page has no value for search results.
Potential Link Equity Impact: Some SEO professionals theorise that when Google drastically reduces crawl frequency for noindexed pages, the links on those pages may become less effective at passing link equity over time. However, Google has indicated they do continue to crawl noindexed pages (albeit potentially less frequently) and follow the links from them.
The Practical Reality: For e-commerce transactional pages (Checkout, Basket, etc.), any potential long-term impact is acceptable because:
- Prioritisation: Your primary goal is cleaning the search index, not using these pages for major link equity distribution.
- Minimal Impact: The bulk of your site’s authority is passed through your homepage, category listings, and blog posts. The benefit of keeping dynamic, low-value pages out of the index far outweighs any minimal potential loss of link value from these specific pages.
In short, for transactional pages, use noindex, follow to clean up the search index, which is the highest SEO priority for these specific URLs.
How to Implement Noindex with Rank Math
Rank Math makes managing noindex directives incredibly straightforward.
- Edit the Page: Go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Pages, and edit the specific page you want to noindex (e.g., your “Checkout” page).
- Open Rank Math SEO Settings: Scroll down below the content editor until you find the Rank Math SEO box.
- Access Advanced Settings: Click on the “Advanced” tab (often a cogwheel icon) within the Rank Math box.
- Set the Robot Meta:
- Find the “Robot Meta” section.
- Tick the box next to “No Index”.
- Ensure the box next to “No Follow” is unticked (as we want internal links on the checkout page to be followed).
- Update the Page: Save your changes by clicking the “Update” button on the page.
Rank Math will then automatically add the correct <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"> tag to the page’s HTML.
Pros and Cons of a Noindex Strategy
| Pros | Cons |
| Optimised Crawl Budget: Search engines spend more time on your genuinely valuable product and category pages. | Accidental Noindexing: If you accidentally noindex a crucial page, it will disappear from search results, leading to a significant drop in traffic. Always double-check! |
| Cleaner Search Results: Prevents irrelevant, low-quality pages from appearing in Google’s index. | Confusion with Robots.txt: You must not block a page via robots.txt if you want Google to see and respect the noindex tag. |
| Better User Experience: Users won’t accidentally land on an empty basket or a login page from organic search. | Reduced Crawl Frequency: Over time, Google may reduce crawling of noindexed pages, though this is generally acceptable for transactional pages. |
Other Essential E-commerce SEO Strategies
To ensure your shop is a success, combine your noindex strategy with these core SEO practices:
Optimise Product Pages for Conversion: Write unique, detailed descriptions that go beyond the manufacturer’s blurb. Use descriptive alt text for all product images.
Implement Product Schema: Use Rank Math’s Schema features to add structured data (price, availability, reviews) to your products. This helps you achieve rich snippets in the search results, making your listings stand out.
Speed is King: Your page loading speed is a critical ranking factor and conversion booster. Use compressed images, leverage browser caching, and consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN).
Strategic Internal Linking: Actively link from relevant blog posts to product pages, and between related product/category pages to help distribute link equity across your site.
High-Quality Content: Create a blog or resources section that answers customer questions and covers industry trends. This drives traffic and establishes your shop as an authority.
Mobile-First Design: Ensure your entire shop is fully responsive and offers a seamless experience on mobile phones and tablets.
By thoughtfully applying the noindex strategy to your transactional pages and diligently working on these broader SEO initiatives, your e-commerce store will be well on its way to achieving higher visibility and greater success in the competitive online marketplace.
E-commerce URL Detection Feature
Our XML Sitemap URL Extractor includes intelligent e-commerce URL detection to help you maintain a clean, SEO-optimised sitemap. When you extract URLs from your sitemap, the tool automatically scans for common e-commerce pages that shouldn’t typically be included – such as user account pages, login screens, checkout processes, basket pages, and order confirmation pages.
As we have discussed, these pages, while essential for your site’s functionality, can clutter your sitemap and waste search engine crawl budget if indexed. The tool flags these URLs by category, showing you exactly which pages need attention, making it quick and easy to identify sitemap issues that could be holding back your site’s SEO performance. Simply review the flagged URLs and remove them from your XML sitemap (using noindez) to ensure search engines focus on your valuable product and category pages instead.
