How can you stop a blog post being crawled by Google?

[ScottBeddoes]

Hello

I had a blog post that was ranking for a keyword instead of the category page I wanted to rank for it.

So I deleted the blog post in Shopify.

But the blog post is still showing in Google search results for the keyword.

How can I stop it from being crawled if I've already deleted the blog post? I read that deleted blog posts can't be recovered.

Can anyone help me, please?

Thanks

[MS-WEB-DESIGNER · Accepted solution]

Dear @ScottBeddoes 

Either do 301 redirections or use the remove URL tool at Google search console.

[ScottBeddoes]

Just done it using the Google Search Console option.

Thanks for your help.

[KieranR]

Lol I mean if you want to remove your traffic too? 301 redirect as a backstop at least is a good idea, if it was a cannibalization issue. If the category page doesn't even come close to being relevant for that query (as google sees it) then you may have shot yourself in the foot.

[ScottBeddoes]

It was a resource guide that I originally wrote as a blog post.

I wanted to move the information to a page on the site because I'm building a resource and FAQ section.

The post wasn't really getting much traffic and I wanted to target the keyword with the category page instead.

And yeah, the category page is relevant.

Thanks for the reply.

[KieranR]

ahh nice now that sounds like a better plan. 

[Andrew]

Hi @ScottBeddoes,

Hyde here from Shopify. Great question!

It appears that you've resolved the issue through Google Console and that's great. Just by way of context and for your consideration moving forward I thought I'd mention that:

Google crawls your website for SEO purposes, but it doesn't do so all the time. So you may want to help it along by submitting your sitemap to Google. That will hopefully indicate to Google that a page no longer exists! You can also totally do what @MS-WEB-DESIGNER suggested and create 301 URLs (here's our information on URL Redirects). 

Moving forward here is some handy information about SEO with Shopify that you may find useful:

* A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing.
* Ecommerce SEO 101 Video Series.
* Find out more about blogs.

Here too is how you can look up keywords to help boost your site’s ranking.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!

All the best, Hyde.

[ScottBeddoes]

Thanks. Yes, I always submit my sitemap to Google after I make changes to the site.

Thanks for your help.

Scott