Yoast media attachment URLs

  • Resolved alexs464

    (@alexs464)


    4 years, 10 months ago

    I updated Yoast to the newest version and just liked in 2018, the plugin automatically enabled the indexation of all of my images.

    This caused a very important drop in my SERP rankings and a dramatic loss in revenue.

    Is using the old Yoast Search Index Purge plugin still the recommended way to fix this?

    If so, I just looked at my sitemaps (created by Yoast) and I see 1092 attachment URLS. Does this mean that Google will index all 1092 images or will it somehow de-index them?

    Yoast, please help me fix your mistake.

    Thanks

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • Hi @alexs464,

    Sorry for the trouble you’re experiencing with our plugin. We are not yet sure whether the latest update would cause problem with attachment URLs. Anyway, you will only need the Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge plugin if the media (attachment) pages are appearing for your site in the search results. We recommend to install and keep the plugin at-least for 6 months as the relevant media (attachment) pages that appear in the search results will be remove from the search results and that is the goal of Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge plugin as media (attachment) pages causes thin content issue in the search results.

    1. Go to SEO-Search Appearance-Media and select YES.

    2. Install the purge plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/yoast-seo-search-index-purge/ from your Plugins menu by searching for it. This will make all those attachment pages be a 410. This error will tell Google to deindex those attachment pages and remove them from Google. You may see an increase in errors in your Google Search Console but it is expected with the purge plugin and will not hurt the SEO of the site provided they are all related to those attachment pages.

    3. Keep the purge plugin installed on your site for 6 months. Then check in Google if those attachment pages have been removed. If so, delete the purge plugin and make sure it says Yes in that media section.

    I hope that helps!

    Thread Starter alexs464

    (@alexs464)

    Thanks for your reply.

    Unfortunately I cannot wait 6 months for the issue to be fixed.

    I grabbed all those 1197 NEW URLs and submitted them to Google for removal, one by one. Hopefully this will work faster than Search Index Purge plugin.

    Plugin Support marcanor

    (@marcanor)

    Hi @alexs464 ,

    The 6 months period is just a timeframe we set just to be safe. Once Google crawls the URLs and sees the 410 redirects, it should be much sooner. Unfortunately, these things vary for each site, so we cannot give you an exact time for the changes to take effect.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by marcanor.
    Plugin Support Md Mazedul Islam Khan

    (@mazedulislamkhan)

    Closing for now due to inactivity

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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