Hi SEOs, 2nd dumb question of the year: TL;DR: Will page rank pass to posts/pages that are set to noindex? More details: I want to build a website and have a personal section on it. Obviously, I dont care about ranking those posts, as they offer probably no value to the target audience, but I want to write more freely on my blog rather than target keywords all the time. I know that PageRank gets diluted on all pages, and therefore authority is divided among those pages (please correct me if Im wrong.) What I want to know is whether pagerank would pass to the posts I would set to noindex or even keep out of the sitemap and robot file if I could? Also, I dont want to waste crawl budget on those pages. Would noindex stop the crawl? Thanks everyone!

Alyssa Scott: You are worrying way too much about SEO, just write.

Victor Ortiz: Yeah, but it doesnt hurt to know a little bit of how the technical stuff work.

Alyssa Scott: Victor Ortiz: I wasnt arguing against learning, I was suggesting that in your situation, as a blogger, every minute you spend not developing whatever is your actual craft is probably not that great of a way to spend your time. When your site will be…See more

Victor Ortiz: Alyssa Scott: Youre right. I just needed to ask so I can understand how I will structure the blog and what I should expect.

Elizabeth Jones: Victor Ortiz: A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Youre meddling with something that could hurt you if you get it wrong, and your reasoning for wanting to apply NOINDEX and/or block resources is misplaced IMO.

Victor Ortiz: Elizabeth Jones: Yeah, I dont intend to just get the answer and stop looking into it. I want to understand more and read more about. Why do you think my reasoning is misplaced?

Elizabeth Jones: The value of NOINDEXing utility pages like About Us is going to be marginal at best, whereas the risks of playing with these directives and getting them wrong is quite high. IMO youre looking in the wrong places if you want to drive your organic visibility. Unless your site is very large (as in x00,000 or X,000,000 pages and above) you probably wont need to worry about crawl budget.

Victor Ortiz: Elizabeth Jones: I see your point. I shouldnt worry about crawl budget in this case. But the pages Im looking to noindex arent just the about us page and similar. Im looking to add a personal section in the google that I may update daily with content…See more

Elizabeth Jones: If the content and links on those pages updates frequently dont NOINDEX them as Google may crawl them less, and therefore take a lot longer to see those links. Again, you honestly dont need or want to worry about these things. It wont help your SEO IMO.

Victor Ortiz: Elizabeth Jones: Well, sounds like youre right. Apparently, crawlers can find and index those pages whether I noindex them or not. If they are linked to from other pages, they may still find them. So, theres no point wasting time doing this, and as you said, the risk of messing things up is pretty big. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Keira Kelly: To answer your question, yes, NOINDEX pages can pass PageRank. This was confirmed by Google back in 2012. Here is the actual citation via video: Youtube.com DeepCrawl has one of the best resources on NOINDEX and Craw Budget and PageRank you can find anywhere.Find it here: Deepcrawl.com

Webmaster Central office-hours, July 20, 2012
youtube.com

Victor Ortiz: Thank you, Keira Kelly:! Youve actually answered the follow-up question I had, not the original one. Im more asking whether PageRank passes TO them, and no the other way around? Any idea about that?

Keira Kelly: Youness, the answer is actually in the article I gave you. The answer to that, as well, is yes.A NoIndex page can accumulate PageRank, because the links are still followed outwards from a NoIndex page.

Alyssa Scott: That being said, with the recent changes in nofollow behaviour, as it relates to long term noindex, this answer doesnt look complete anymore. Long-term no index, might not pass anything after a while at this point.

Keira Kelly: Francois-Pierre, Im assuming you are referring to this recent statement by Google on long-term NOINDEX behavior here: Seroundtable.com more

Google: Long Term Noindex Will Lead To Nofollow On Links
seroundtable.com

Alyssa Scott: Keira Kelly: yep 🙂

Victor Ortiz: Keira Kelly: Ive just finished reading. Its clear to me now. Thanks again! I assume I should try to hide these pages from Google via robot.txt if I dont want them to be found by the bots? Is that right? if so, is it advised to do so?

Keira Kelly: Youness, Google will read and process the directives in the Robots.txt first, if that is your question. Yes.

Victor Ortiz: Casey, Thank you! Much appreciated. Ill go read a bit more on using the robot.txt. I dont want to mess things up.

Maia Bailey: A document that is not indexed is still a document, so it must have PageRank and as Casey pointed out, they do also follow links on noindex pages.Noindex won’t stop the crawl, a robots.txt disallow directive would.But if you’re talking about a few thousand pages… “crawl budget” is meaningless and sculpting is pointless.

Victor Ortiz: Maybe after some years, itll be few thousands, but right now, there wont be too many. Its just content that I dont think the searcher will find valuable, but I still want to share it with my audience. For eg. an update on a challenge, or something like that.

London Herrera: a robots.txt disallow directive would.nope, it wont, a lot of bots still ignore them

Victor Ortiz: London Herrera: so, even if I add the directive disallow and noindex, theyll be still be crawled and indexed?

London Herrera: Support.google.com here you go

Victor Ortiz: London Herrera: Thank you!

Maia Bailey: London Herrera: any bot that is relevant to ***SEO*** will comply with the robot exclusion protocol.

London Herrera: Maia Bailey: agree, but the issue is, these pages will still get indexed by third party sites and ses

Maia Bailey: That’s true. It’s also true that chicken soup is mostly water, and neither of these things affects crawl budget.

London Herrera: agree again, i was just pointing out that using robots file to block stuff is not a solution that is viable

Kyler Allen: Why not just gate them and not worry about it?

Victor Ortiz: That is the idea I am looking into now.

Elizabeth Jones: Really youre wasting your time looking at this and the previous question. If were talking about a blog theres virtually no reason youd want to worry about NOINDEXing pages like About etc. Spend your time focusing on content.

Londyn Underwood: I know that PageRank gets diluted on all pages, and therefore authority is divided among those pages (please correct me if Im wrong.) <== Wrong.
Victor Ortiz: I want to make a joke, but I also want to learn. So, what should I go with here? Haha! Whats wrong in that statement?

Raymond Adams: In specific terms, PageRank and Authority are two very different things. Granted, its probably impossible to gain any authority without PageRank and at a certain point a high PageRank is probably going to result in some sort of authority, but they are…See more

Londyn Underwood: As for whether a NoIndexed document passes PageRank, it depends on how Google decides to treat the page. John Mueller recently said theyll eventually stop crawling pages that are NoIndexed, so they wont receive or pass PageRank.

Elizabeth Jones: eventually stop crawling pages that are NoIndexed, so they wont *receive* or pass PageRank. (emphasis receive) – I imagine thats the kind of assumption you yourself would jump on if someone else made it. No way to prove or disprove your assertion.

Andre Griffith: Matt Cutts back in the day also stated any link whether followed or not leaks some link juice. Recently we had a big discussion around noindexed directories and their effects on latter pages being indexed. Also, the sitemap must be bang on. The message has to be right across the board and if its a custom site oh man can it get messy fast.