Hi, I have my website where in the search results they display all the pages instead of just the first page. Now I have redone my site and it has appeared at the top like it should, but the previous home.html appears there aswell. What should I do to remove that home.html, can I use the Google removal tool?

If the home.html page is 301-redirected to the new home page then it will disappear over time.

Is correct, a simple 301 in your .htaccess file should solve the problem. I have seen instances where a blog post can overtake the index page, maybe because of similar content on the pages, but by removing the blog post and 301 redirecting it to the homepage always fixes the problem.

 

It might be that having made recent changes to the structure of your site that Googlebot hasn't caught up yet, your old home.html may be still cached (check your cache date of home.html) with the original content and Googlebot can still spider it if it is still there (remember that even though a page could be deleted, it can still be cached depending on the last cache date), and if you use that same content on the new homepage then redirect (then delete) the old homepage and use a canonical tag on your new homepage to speed up the process:

 

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394

 

Googlebot is quick to pick up new content, but unfortunately it is vice-versa when it comes to removing pages and wanting them deindexed unless you use methods such as 301, or blocking access with robots.txt, or introducing a 'noindex' meta tag. Do not simply delete your old home.html page otherwise that will create a 404 that will report in Webmaster Tools.

 

WW

Edited April 10, 201214 yr by WiganWebs

Thanks for the reply, the actual URL is the same with the home.html, however in the search results it now has my index page, then the old home.html and now it has my about.html. I only want the main homepage to show in the search results and not any other, shall I use a noindex meta?