Search Spam not being NoIndexed

Hi @vickigarside

Yes, one of the Yoast SEO plugin’s ‘hidden’ features is to mark internal site search pages as ‘noindex’ so it doesn’t show up in the search results – https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-hidden-features/

It looks like we’ll need permission to access the Google drive document you’ve shared. Would it be possible instead for you to share a few example URLs here so we can check it directly?

Hi Michael

I have changed the permission on the Google Doc so you should be able to access it.

It is a screenshot of URLs being logged as 404s in my Google Search Console. There is no point in my giving you those URLs here as they do not exist (hence the 404s) – and my issue is that Yoast is not noindexing those search strings as per the hidden feature, and thus allowing them to be logged as 404s.

Thank you.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by vickigarside.

Hey @vickigarside,

Thank you for your reply. I was trying to replicate to see if your search results pages are noindexed now, but it seems I get a 404 error on any search term on your site.

I’m not sure how they were found or added if the noindexing of your search results pages were on noindex. There are also other malicious tactics spammers use where they are able to submit a new sitemap in your Google Search Console property if they were able to add themselves as property owner. Please check if there are any sitemaps or users added to your property that don’t belong there. Apart from that, we also have extra crawling settings in Yoast SEO Premium that does block extra stuff. Please have a look at: https://yoast.com/help/crawl-settings-in-yoast-seo/ and https://yoast.com/internal-site-search-spam/

Hi Jeroen

There are no additional users, sitemaps or any other evidence the site has been hacked or any malicious actions taken.

These 404s can ONLY have come from the Yoast Plugin NOT noindexing search pages.

Also, my search pages via the search bar are built within my theme and do not generate ‘true’ webpages. The spam results are being generated purely by persons unknown manually typing in my URL with /s or /search and their spam terms after that. (My site does not use /s or /search as valid file paths)
For that reason, I believe my developers have manually blocked the use of those terms.

The problem remains however that Yoast is not operating as advertised. And I shouldn’t have to pay a premium for features when the basic ones do not work correctly.

Hello @vickigarside

The Yoast SEO plugin sets internal search pages as noindex by default. Your site has been a target for spammy internal site search links. And I understand you’ve blocked search on your site.

Though you’re seeing data about the URLs in the Google Search Console, it’s not affecting your SEO. The URLs have not been indexed, as Google reports them as 404s.

You can learn more about internal site search spam at https://yoast.com/internal-site-search-spam/

This thread was marked resolved due to a lack of activity, but you’re always welcome to re-open the topic. Please read this post before opening a new request.

This was not resolved. I was actually quite disgusted that Yoast Support has absolutely no solution or answer to HOW the spam search results have been found by Google and subsequently reported as 404s.

Also, that you assert that there is no problem because Google sees them as 404s – I have hundreds of these erroneous search result pages marked as 404s, with more and more added every day. Excessive amounts of 404 pages is NOT good for a sites SEO. Especially when there are more of them than pages indexed.