Your Search Pages Are Like a Big Empty Space: Why This Is Bad for SEO and How to Fix It
A websites search feature is really helpful for visitors to find things quickly. It can also cause big problems for SEO that you might not even notice. It is like having a big empty space that search engines keep looking at. Every time someone searches for something or uses filters or sorts things it makes a new webpage and search engines might try to look at all of them. If you do not do something about it these pages can waste the time that search engines spend looking at your website make your server work too hard and stop pages from being found easily.
What Is This Big Empty Space?
This big empty space happens when a website makes many webpages that search engines can find. The search feature on your website is one of the reasons this happens because every search term makes a new webpage.
For example:
/search?q=seo
/search?q=website
/search?q=marketing
/search?q=wordpress
When you add filters, categories and sorting options the number of webpages becomes really big.
Why Search Pages Are Bad for SEO
1. Search Engines Waste Their Time
Search engines have so much time to look at each website. If they spend all their time looking at thousands of search result pages they do not have time to look at your pages like:
Product pages
Service pages
Blog posts
Landing pages
This means that the good stuff on your website might take longer to show up in search results.
2. Your Server Might Get Slow
Search pages are different from pages because they are made on the spot. Every time someone looks at one it might need to:
Look things up in a database
Process the search
Find matching content
Rank the results
If search engines look at many of these pages your server might get overwhelmed and your website might become slow for visitors.
3. Search Engines Keep Finding New Pages
A lot of search pages have things like:
searches
Suggested keywords
Filter combinations
Pagination
Sort options
Search engines keep following these links finding webpages and making the problem even bigger.
Why This Matters for SEO
Having thousands of search result pages in search engines does not usually help users because these pages often have the low-quality content. Of helping your website rank better they can:
Waste search engine time
Create duplicate content
Make your website look less important
Stop important pages from being found
Best Ways to Stop This Big Empty Space
Block Search Pages
The easiest way to fix this is to stop search engines from looking at search pages.
Example:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
If your search uses codes in the webpage address:
Disallow: /search?
It is usually easier to have one rule than a lot of complicated ones.
Use a Special Tag
If search pages need to be available to users you can add a tag to the webpage.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">
This tells search engines not to include these pages in search results. Still allows them to look at the page if they need to.
Blocking Search Pages vs Using the Special Tag
Blocking Search Pages Using the Special Tag
Stops search engines from looking Allows search engines to look
Saves search engine time Stops pages from being included in search results
Easy to do Useful when pages need to be available
Choose the method that works best for your website.
Avoid Mistakes
Do Not Rely on URL Removal Tools
Removing webpages from search results does not stop search engines from looking at them. It just hides them for a while.
Do Not Give Search Engines Errors
If search engines get errors when they look at your website it can stop them from looking at your important pages.
Do Not Make Complicated Rules
Keep your rules simple. One rule that covers all your search pages is easier to manage and less likely to cause problems.
Let Search Engines Look at Category Pages
Not all pages that are made on the spot should be blocked.
Category pages help search engines understand your website and make it easier for users to find things. These pages usually deserve to be looked at and included in search results because they organize content in a useful way.
Security Risks You Should Know About
Search pages can also be targets for spam.
Bad people might make search webpage addresses with:
Casino keywords
Pharmaceutical terms
Adult content
Spam phone numbers
Scam-related phrases
If these webpage addresses are included in search results your website could show up for searches and that could hurt your websites reputation.
SEO Best Practices
Block search result pages when you can.
Use the tag if users need to access search pages.
Keep your rules simple.
Let search engines look at category and landing pages.
Check regularly to make sure unwanted search pages are not included in search results.
Stop spam webpage addresses from being included in search results.
Search features are good, for users. They can secretly create a big empty space that wastes search engine time slows down your server and exposes your website to unnecessary SEO risks. By blocking search result pages using the tag when necessary and keeping your website organized you can help search engines focus on your most important content and improve your websites SEO performance.
