NOT EVERY PAGE SHOULD BE INDEXED. WHAT TO HIDE FROM GOOGLE.

Google Is Indexing Your Junk Pages

Here's something most plumbers never think about.

Google is crawling your website and indexing every page it can find. Your homepage, your service pages, your about page... that's all good.

But it's also indexing your thank-you page. Your privacy policy. Your tag archive pages. That test page you created and forgot about. The duplicate page your website builder generated for no reason.

And all that junk is diluting your SEO.

Think of it like this. If you walked into a plumbing supply store and half the shelves were full of random items that had nothing to do with plumbing, you'd think the place was a mess. You'd lose confidence in it.

Google feels the same way about your website.

When Google sees a bunch of low-quality, thin, or irrelevant pages in your index, it thinks your site is less focused, less authoritative, and less worth showing to searchers.

not great, Bob

What Does "Indexing" Even Mean?

Quick definition.

When Google "indexes" a page, it means Google has added that page to its database. It can now show up in search results.

When a page is "noindexed," Google knows about it but won't show it in search results. It's hidden from searchers but still accessible if someone has the direct link.

You want your important pages indexed. You want your junk pages noindexed.

Pages You Should Probably Noindex

### 1. Thank You Pages

After someone fills out your contact form, they usually land on a "thank you" page. This page has no SEO value. Nobody's searching for "thank you for contacting Smith Plumbing."

Noindex it.

### 2. Privacy Policy and Terms Pages

These are legally required on many sites, but they don't need to rank in Google. They're thin pages with no unique value from an SEO perspective.

Noindex them.

### 3. Tag and Category Archive Pages

If your blog creates automatic archive pages for tags and categories (WordPress does this by default), those pages are usually thin collections of post links. They don't add value and they create duplicate content issues.

Noindex them.

### 4. Internal Search Results Pages

If your site has a search function, the results pages can get indexed by Google. That creates an infinite number of low-quality pages in your index.

Noindex all internal search result pages.

### 5. Old, Outdated Content

Got a blog post from 2018 about "plumbing trends for 2019"? It's outdated and irrelevant. Either update it with current info or noindex it.

### 6. Test Pages and Drafts

You'd be surprised how often test pages or draft pages get accidentally published and indexed. Check for them.

### 7. Login and Account Pages

If your site has any kind of login portal (for a customer portal, for example), those pages don't belong in search results.

### 8. Duplicate Pages

Some website builders create multiple URLs for the same content. For example: - yoursite.com/services - yoursite.com/services/ - yoursite.com/Services

That's three pages with the same content. Google sees duplicate content and gets confused.

Pick one. Noindex or redirect the others.

How to Noindex a Page

There are two main ways:

### Method 1: Meta Robots Tag

This is one of the meta tags that control how Google interacts with your pages. Add this line to the `` section of the pages you want to hide:

```html ```

The "noindex" tells Google not to index the page. The "follow" tells Google it can still follow the links on that page (which is usually what you want).

### Method 2: Robots.txt

You can add rules to your robots.txt file to tell Google not to crawl certain pages or directories.

But here's the thing. Robots.txt tells Google not to crawl a page, but it doesn't guarantee Google won't index it. If other sites link to that page, Google might still index it without crawling it.

The meta robots tag is more reliable for noindexing.

### If You're on WordPress

Use the Yoast SEO or Rank Math plugin. Both have a simple toggle on each page that says "Allow search engines to show this page in search results?" Just flip it to "No."

Takes about 3 seconds per page.

Pages You Should NEVER Noindex

Just as important as knowing what to hide is knowing what to keep visible:

1. Your homepage (obviously)
2. Service pages (these are your money pages)
3. Location/service area pages (critical for local SEO)
4. Blog posts (as long as they're quality and relevant, here's how to grow traffic with them)
5. About page (builds trust and authority)
6. Contact page (people search for "[company name] phone number")
7. Reviews/testimonials page (social proof and SEO value)

When in doubt, keep it indexed. Only noindex pages that are clearly low-quality, duplicate, or irrelevant.

How to Check What Google Has Indexed

Want to see exactly what Google has indexed on your site?

Go to Google and type: `site:yourwebsite.com`

Every page that shows up is in Google's index. Scroll through the results. If you see pages that shouldn't be there (thank you pages, test pages, junk), that's your noindex to-do list.

You can also check Google Search Console under "Pages" to see indexed vs. non-indexed pages and why.

The Crawl Budget Factor

Here's a concept most plumbers have never heard of: crawl budget.

Google allocates a certain amount of time and resources to crawl your website. For small sites (under 100 pages), this usually isn't an issue.

But if you have a bloated site with hundreds of junk pages, Google spends its crawl budget on those junk pages instead of your important pages. That means your money pages might get crawled less frequently, which means updates take longer to show up in search results.

Cleaning up your index = Google spends more time on the pages that make you money. You can learn more about crawl budget and indexing from Google's developer documentation.

The Quick Cleanup Checklist

Here's your action plan:

1. Google `site:yourwebsite.com` and review every indexed page
2. Identify pages that don't belong in search results
3. Add noindex tags to those pages
4. Check for duplicate URLs and consolidate them
5. Set up Google Search Console if you haven't already
6. Monitor your index quarterly

Total time: about 30-45 minutes for the initial cleanup. Then 10 minutes every few months to maintain it.

Want us to handle it? We do a full index audit as part of our website builds. We make sure Google is only seeing the pages that matter. No junk. No duplicates. No wasted crawl budget.

Check out our pricing to see what's included.

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P.S. Here's a fun one. I once audited a plumber's website and found that Google had indexed 347 pages. The site only had 12 real pages. The other 335 were auto-generated tag pages, image attachment pages, and duplicate URLs from a crappy WordPress theme. No wonder Google didn't know what the site was about. Let us audit yours.