Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math and bringing your concern to our attention. Iām sorry for any inconvenience this issue may have caused you.
If you wanted to remove the old URL from the Google Search Results page, the steps you have provided will help to deindex them. Usually, setting the post/page to noindex and adding a manual canonical URL will let Google know that this page should not be indexed. Those old URL’s will be gone after the next recrawl. You can also exclude them in your sitemap (if they’re still listed after doing the steps above).
And, hereās how you find the post/page ID inside WordPress: https://mythemeshop.com/blog/how-to-find-post-category-tag-comments-or-user-id-in-wordpress/
If you have already deleted the post/page, you can set a 301 redirection since you’re unable to set the robots meta for those posts:
https://rankmath.com/kb/setting-up-redirections/
I hope that helps. Thank you, and please donāt hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hello,
Thank you for following up.
I’ve checked your sitemap, and the /homepage/ URL is not present there. If Google still shows that URL on search results, you can resubmit your sitemap_index.xml for Google to know your updated URLs. The /recipes/ URL is already showing in your sitemap, so it should be the one Google picks up.
You can also request URL removal (remove URL tool) in Google Search Console since it’s showing a cached version of your site in SERPs.
I hope that helps. Thank you, and looking forward to helping you.
Thanks
Should i also exclude the wrong URL from my sitemap using RankMath?
As an example if I have https://www.website.com/recipes/rice/ which is meant to be the canonincal URL but google has indexed https://www.website.org/homepage/rice/ but I cant seem to find this URL anywhere, on WordPress should I set a canonincal tag on the correct URL and exclude the wrong URL from my sitemap?
Hello,
Thank you for the follow-up.
Since https://www.website.org/homepage/rice/ is non-existing on your website, you can’t add a canonical URL to it. If it’s still showing in Google search results, you can follow the remove URL tool in Google Search Console. No need to set a canonical tag on the correct URL, as its purpose is to let Google know that it is a duplicate page, and should not be indexed.
In this case, after requesting to remove the URL from Google search results and resubmitting your sitemap, you’ll need to give Google some time to recrawl your website to see the changes.
I hope that helps. Thank you, and please donāt hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.
Thanks that clears it all up perfectly but a final question should I request Google to recrawl and index the new page URL I want them to index as the canonical URL or should I request them to recrawl the wrong page URL to see that it is has a 301 redirect to the correct canonical URL page?
Or should I do both? What is the best practice for this?
Thanks
i am facing same issue with ThesmartApk and after read your comments it helps me alot.
Love From Bangladesh
Regards: Sophia Ava
Hello @Zaphire,
If all is set correctly; that is the canonical is set to the correct page and pages not meant for indexing are set to noindex then you can simply await for Google to update these changes.
It is common for Google to take sometime to remove previously indexed from Search Results.
You can however ask Google to recrawl the URL you want indexed as shown here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/ask-google-to-recrawl
@Sophia, please feel free to open a new forum ticket if you need any further assistance
Hope this helps.
Thank you for your response.
But is there a way to manually remove a URL that doesn’t exist but is showing as indexed in Google as canonical such as http://www.website/home/post ?
Or would I have to block it using it Robots.txt ?
I have already submitted a URL removal request.
Hello,
Thank you for following up.
Since you have already submitted a removal request to Google, you can also redirect the URL(s) with a 410 Content Deleted which tells Google the content is deleted. Google will know that you have removed the URL(s) on purpose and it should remove that URL from its index much sooner.
Please follow the steps in this link and choose 410 Content Deleted:
https://rankmath.com/kb/setting-up-redirections/#redirections
I hope that helps. Thank you, and please donāt hesitate to contact us if you need further assistance.
Thanks for your response.
Apologies what I meant to write was does RankMath have the option to remove a URL from the XML sitemap file?
Hello,
Thank you for follow up.
You can use the option in Rank math to exclude posts/pages with their ID in Rank math > Sitemap Settings
Looking forward to helping you. Thank you.
Hello,
We are super happy that this resolved your issue. If you have any other questions in the future, know that we are here to help you.
If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.
If you do have another question in the future, please feel free to create a new forum topic, and it will be our pleasure to assist you again.
Thank you.
