Google: Best To Not Have Sponsored Products In Category Pages Indexed

Sep 27, 2021 - 7:11 am 0 by

Google Times Square Ads

I asked John Mueller of Google about category pages that contain sponsored products. Does Google want sites to ensure Google cannot index those sponsored products. John Mueller said "some sites take care to prevent them from being indexed in various ways, which is probably a good practice."

He didn't go as far to say that it is part of Google's webmaster guidelines and that is something Google frowns upon. He just said it "is probably a good practice" to make sure Google does not discover those sponsored products on those pages.

Here is the example I provided, of course I used cheese:

Google Seo Sponsored Products Cats

My question was "I had an interesting question asked about category pages that list products as sponsored. A lot of e-comm sites do this. Does Google treat the products labeled as sponsored differently just because they have a sponsored label on the UI?"

John responded "These are essentially just ads -- like you might have on any site. Some sites take care to prevent them from being indexed in various ways, which is probably a good practice. Eg, AFAIK Adsense is blocked by robots.txt."

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: Bit more on this:

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google's 23rd Birthday Logo - Happy Birthday Google