Using directory removal in webmaster tools

[speedshopping]

Hi,

We have a very large faceted website that we believe started having problems about 14 months ago when we moved to a better server that inevitably allowed google to index well over 2 million pages and result in a duplicate content issue.

We generally have 2 or 3 sets of pages that attempt to rank for a specific keyword, but one of those pages always favoured the others and we did very well. However, when the increase in indexed pages happened, the problems began.

To cut a long story short, recent tests have been performed using the removal tool in webmaster tools:

- I looked for a rank that we previously did well for our favoured page and found the alternate, weaker faceted page.
- I then removed this page to see what happened, and found that by removing the page, would instantly see our favoured page appear!
- I then ran this test across a series of pages and the same happened.
- following these tests, we decided to take the plunge and remove the directory to which 100,000 of these weaker pages lived in webmaster tools.
- We were happy to see that we hadn't lost any traffic following this removal, assuming that our favoured pages had simply taken their place.
- However, our favoured pages are still only performing at 25% of what they used to do, so my question is:

Having removed 100k worth of pages, do we have to wait a while before Google analyses the whole site using a document classifier or equivalent, and has anybody had similar experiences?

Thanks in advance,
Wesiwyg

[tedster]

Yes, I would say there will be a wait (possibly several weeks) while Google recalculates the whole website.

[g1smd]

Would using the

rel="canonical"

tag have helped fix some of the issues here?

[speedshopping]

We did consider canonical, but these 2 types of pages aren't specifically the same, nor are they faceted in the traditional sense such as sorting or refined, so we thought the removal tool would be best option - we do believe that they were competing for the same rank with our favoured page following the tests done.

[speedshopping]

@tedster are you generalising or are you speaking from experience after using the removal tool for a large number of pages that you believed was the cause of de-ranking?

[n00b1]

Having done this with another site myself I would say he is speaking from experience. It took around 2 months after the removal of several hundred 'duplicate' pages before some positive results shone through. Google certainly doesn't seem to recalculate the overall quality weight and what have you anywhere near instantaneously. I am currently doing the same process for another website and hoping for the best - but patience is required.

[tedster]

It's not my personal experience - but it comes from the reports of several other people who I trust. However, the number an proportion of URLs, both removed and remaining, are a bit different in those cases and yours.

I would hope it comes down to whether you've de-indexed a number of very strong URLs or not... and whether there are lots of really strong URLs that remain untouched. The history of the site and it's accumulated trust signals are also going to play in a powerful way.

If the overall doesn't look like anything manipulative, then I'd expect any traffic hiccup to be short-lived. But hey, it's Google in 2012. The complexity they've created has begun to defy predictions,