Index Bloat: What It Is and How to Fix It

Pages that can contribute to index bloat include:

• Filtered product pages using URL parameters
• Internal search results
• Printer-friendly page versions
• Confirmation and thank you pages
• Low quality and thin content 

Why This Should Matter to You

Index bloat can inflate your online presence, sharing content thy doesn't serve a purpose and does not resonate with your audience. When search engine crawlers index these pages it is:

• More difficult for search engines to rank your pages – crawlers need to understand your site to match content to user queries, ranking it effectively
• Damaging to your ranking – pages with similar content will compete against each other, which can affect the authority of your website 
• Inefficient use of your crawl budget – search engine crawlers waste your limited budget collecting information it doesn't need

What Causes Index Bloat

The most common causes of index bloat includes:

• Accidental page duplication
• Missing or incorrect robots.txt file
• Pagination
• Low quality or poor performing content

How to Fix Index Bloat

In order to fix index bloat, you will need to remove your internal links and give search engine crawlers instructions on what pages to index, along with using canonical tags, and deleting any excess content from your website.

Remove Internal Links

When you noindex your content, removing any internal links that direct users to that content makes it harder for search engines to find and index it. Search engine crawlers use internal links to discover new content on your website. When you remove the path, it ensures search engines focus their attention to the other internal links on the page, crawling those instead.

Install or Update Robots.txt File

If your site doesn't have a robots.txt file, now is the time to implement one. You also want to review your robots.txt file regularly, updating it to ensure search engine crawlers visit the right pages. Your robots.txt file also blocks each engines from accessing subdirectories, reducing the risk of it indexing pages you don't want to show up in search results, exhausting your crawl budget.

Use Canonical Tags

Canonical tags ensure search engines don't index similar or duplicate content. Canonical tags are placed in the web page header, telling search engines which URL should be used in search results. This is useful for e-commerce stores that may have dozens of colours of the same item and where each page of these items may appear similar or a duplicate.

Fix Pagination Issues

When you divide your related content across a number of pages, use pagination best practices to ensure search engines understand the relationship between the pages. This involves crating a master page that contains all the content. You can also add canonical tags to tell the search engine which page to index, rather than indexing all the related pages.

Remove Indexed Pages

If you are already struggling with index bloat, you can request specific URLs to be removed from Google using Google Search Console and selecting “removals” on the left-hand side.

Conclusion

Index bloat can have a negative impact on your valuable and limited crawl budget. When your non-important pages are indexed, it means search engines have less time to index the rest of your site, your important pages. Contact Genie Crawl now for a free evaluation and quote. Let us help support your business with an effective SEO strategy that achieves success.