Hey everyone, I'm new to SEO and assisting my boss with a project. Can you help me understand why some pages that are no longer indexed still appear in search results? My boss deleted the URLs from Google Search Console, but they are still showing up. Any advice on how to remove them completely?
It’s possible that the pages are still cached by search engines. Even though you’ve deleted the URLs from Google Search Console, the search engines might still have copies of the content.
Here’s how to understand this:
- Search engine crawlers: Google and other search engines use crawlers to scan the web and store information about web pages. This information is used to index the pages and show them in search results.
- Caching: Search engines often keep copies of web pages in their caches to improve loading times and reduce server load. This means that even if a page is deleted or removed from the website, it might still be available in the search engine’s cache.
How to remove the pages completely:
- Wait for the cache to expire: Search engines will eventually update their caches and remove the pages from their indexes. However, this process can take time.
- Submit a removal request: Google Search Console allows you to request the removal of specific URLs from their search results. This can help to speed up the process of removing the pages from the search index.
ScreamingFrog’s role in this:
ScreamingFrog is a popular SEO tool that can be used to analyze your website and identify any issues that might be affecting your search engine rankings. It can help identify pages that are no longer indexed and are still showing up in search results, making it easier to understand why and fix the problem.